Bridge

History

Bridges had many applications beyond the bounds of the garden. The term bridge referred to structures that carried pedestrians, carriage, and rail traffic over obstacles such as water and ravines. In the context of the garden, however, bridges also took on ornamental roles, and their construction was dictated by aesthetics as well as load-bearing requirements.

Bridges were built by the earliest settlers along main transportation routes. It is not until the second half of the eighteenth century, a period of sharp increase in the construction of elaborate landscape gardens , that there is evidence of bridges constructed specifically for garden settings. Treatises such as William and John Halfpenny’s Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste (1755) and J. C. Loudon’s An Encyclopaedia of Gardening ( 1826 ) demonstrate a wide variety of designs, styles, and materials used for bridges. Most American examples of garden bridges, however, appear to have followed relatively simple designs built of wood and stone.

Garden bridges were built over waterways both natural, as with the cascade at Blithewood on the Hudson River [Fig. 1], and artificial, as at the Vale in Waltham, Mass. [Fig. 2]. At the garden of the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House in Cambridge, Mass., it was said that a pond was created “as an apology for the bridge.” While water was the most common obstacle crossed, bridges were used also to span roads or depressions, such as fosses or ditches. Around 1804, Thomas Jefferson proposed a bridge to connect the park grounds of his estate, which lay on either side of a public road.

Bridges also were used as focal points and as viewing platforms. At Gray’s Garden in Philadelphia and William Paca’s garden in Annapolis, a bridge was used to signal movement from one part of a garden to another. In Paca’s garden, the bridge has been reconstructed using a combination of archaeological findings and Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of Paca [Fig. 3]. Crossing the fish-shaped pond, the bridge marks the transition between the regular geometric form of the parterres and the relative naturalism of the wilderness at the base of the garden.

The artistic convention of using a bridge to demarcate various zones in a landscape painting, a practice that can be traced back to seventeenth-century painters, explains the prominence of bridges in paintings of estate gardens. This compositional technique is particularly apparent in the work of artists who sought to model themselves after the pastoral painting traditions of Poussin, Claude, and the Carracci. A case in point is Charles B. Lawrence’s painting of the Bordentown, N.J., estate Point Breeze [Fig. 4], in which the artist used a bridge to define the middle ground between the Delaware River in the foreground and the distant prospect of the house. In his painting of Canfield House [Fig. 5], in Sharon, Conn., Ralph Earl took painterly poetic license by using a bridge to frame his view of the house, echo the line of the road, and lead the viewer to examine the wider landscape. Eighteenth-century treatise writer Thomas Whately, a strong advocate of modeling designed landscapes after paintings, suggested using a ruined bridge in “wild and romantic scenes” as a picturesque object that would lend “antiquity to the passage.” His advice was repeated by later writers such as George William Johnson in A Dictionary of Modern Gardening (1847) who recommended bridges as a means to create the illusion that a pond was a river or lake, visually amplifying the extent of the property.

Although American garden bridges were generally simpler than many of the designs included in garden and architectural treatises, a clear change in style occurred through time. In the eighteenth century, bridges such as those described in Gray’s Garden in 1790 displayed the fashion for the exotic allure of China. William and John Halfpenny (1755) and Bernard M’Mahon (1806) articulated the “romantic and pleasing effect” of Chinese-style garden elements (see Chinese manner). The Halfpennys’ Rural Architecture in the Chinese Taste included numerous designs for bridges, including a plan of a single-trussed timber bridge [Fig. 6] that strikingly resembles the bridge in the Paca portrait. In the nineteenth century, rustic bridges, such as those described by A. J. Downing (1847), became popular. Builders often used materials that appeared to be natural. For instance, the irregularly shaped branches with their original bark and the rugged stone used at Mr. V.’s residence in Hallowell, Maine, were described by Timothy Dwight (1796) as resulting from an “accident, rather than the effect of human labour.” Such rustic bridges were in keeping with the irregular and naturalistic qualities associated with the picturesque (see Picturesque and Rustic style), and were particularly recommended for moving water and smaller streams. Johnson’s passage of 1847 argued for the suitability of a bridge’s scale, design, and materials to its setting. A bridge, he wrote, is “not a mere appendage to a river, but a kind of property which denotes its character.”

-- Elizabeth Kryder-Reid

Texts

Usage

Constantia [pseud.], 24 June 1790, “Description of Gray’s Gardens, Pennsylvania” (Massachusetts Magazine 3: 414)

“this [avenue], as well as all the smaller avenues, alike produces us in the wilderness, into which we enter, passing over a neat chinese bridge, preparing with much pleasure to penetrate a recess so charming. It is indeed a wilderness of sweets, and the views instantly become romantically enchanting, the scene is every moment changing. Now, side long bends the path; then, pursues its winding way; now, in a straight line; then, in a pleasing labyrinth is lost, until, in every possible direction, it breaketh upon us, amid thick groves of pines, walnuts, chestnuts, mulberries, &c. &c. we seem to ramble, while at the same time, we are surprized [sic] by borders of the richest, and most highly cultivated flowers, in the greatest variety, which even from a royal parterre we might be led to expect.” Dwight, Timothy, 1796, describing the residence of Mr. V., Hallowell, Maine (1821: 2:219)

“Behind the garden is a . . . small mill stream. . . . On either side, the banks, which are of considerable height, and sometimes steep, formed of rude forested grounds, and moss-grown rocks, are left absolutely in the state of nature. Along the brook Mr. V. has made a convenient foot-way, rather appearing to have been trodden out by the feet of wild animals, than to have been contrived by man, and winding over a succession of stone bridges, so rude and inartificial, as to seem the result of accident, rather than the effect of human labour.”

Jefferson, Thomas, c. 1804, describing the improvements of Monticello, plantation of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Va. (Massachusetts Historical Society, Coolidge Collection)

“The north side of Monticello . . . and all Montalto above the thoroughfare to be converted into park & riding grounds, connected at the thoroughfare by a bridge, open, under which the public road may be made to pass so as not to cut off the communication between the lower & upper park grounds.”

Ripley, Samuel, 1815, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, Mass. (p. 272)

“Through the lawn, in front of the mansion house, which is large and handsome, runs Beaver Brook, which it there formed into a serpentine canal, and over which is erected a bridge of three arches, made of the Chelmsford white stone, which is both an ornament to the place, and a specimen of correct taste and workmanship.”

Bryant, William Cullen, 25 August 1821, in a letter to his wife, Frances F. Bryant, describing the Vale, estate of Theodore Lyman, Waltham, Mass. (1975: 108)

“He took me to the seat of Mr. Lyman. . . . It is a perfect paradise. . . . In front of the house, to the south was an artificial piece of water winding about and widening into a lake, with a little island of pines in it, an elegant bridge crossing it, and swans swimming on the surface.”

Anonymous, 26 April 1826, “On Landscapes and Picturesque Gardens” (New England Farmer

4: 316) “Mr. [Andrew] P[armentier]. by the advice of several of his friends, will furnish plans of landscape and picturesque gardens; he will communicate to gentlemen who wish to see him, a collection of his drawings of Cottages, Rustic Bridges, Dutch, Chinese, Turkish, French Pavilions, Temples, Hermitages, Rotundas, &c. For further particulars, inquiries personally, or by letter, addressed to him, post paid, will be attended to.”

Thacher, James, 3 December 1830, “An Excursion on the Hudson,” describing Hyde Park, seat of Dr. David Hosack, on the Hudson River, N.Y. (New England Farmer 9: 156)

“This avenue to the mansion is over a stone bridge, crossing a rapid stream precipitated from the milldams above, and falls in a cascade below. The winding of the road, the varied surface of the ground, the bridge, and the falling of the water, continually vary the prospect and render it a never tiring scene.”

Dearborn, H.A.S., 1832, describing Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. (quoted in Harris 1832: 80)

“In the centre [of the upper garden pond] an island has been formed, having a path on the mar

gin, which is connected with the avenue on the western side by a bridge twenty-four feet in length, neatly railed and painted; and another bridge of like form and extent thrown over the outlet, which affords a communication with the Cemetery ground by the way of the Indian Ridge Path.” [Fig. 7]

Ritchie, Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt, 1839,

describing Point Breeze, estate of Joseph Bonaparte (Count de Survilliers), Bordentown, N.J. (quoted in Weber 1854: 186)

“A narrow stream winds itself gracefully through one part of the grounds, over which several rustic bridges are erected.”

Trego, Charles, 1843, describing Bedford, Pa. (pp. 185–86)

“Near this town are the celebrated Bedford Springs, the water of which has been found to have a beneficial effect in many complaints. . . . The buildings for the accommodation of strangers are large and commodious; the grounds about the springs are tastefully ornamented with neat bridges, railings and gravel walks; and few places of the kind present more agreeable attractions to the invalid, the citizen, or the traveller.”

Longfellow, Alexander W., January 1844, describing the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House, Cambridge, Mass. (quoted in Evans 1993: 38)

“We were very busy planning the grounds & I laid out a linden avenue for the Professor’s private walk. I was often reminded of your fancy for such things. . . . The house is to be repaired but not essentially altered, the old out buildings to be removed, trees planted a pond, & rustic bridge, created the pond is an apology for the bridge.”

Downing, A. J., October 1847, describing Montgomery Place, country home of Mrs. Edward (Louise) Livingston, Dutchess County, N.Y. (quoted in Haley 1988: 49)

“He takes another path, passes by an airy looking rustic bridge, and plunging for a moment into the thicket, emerges again in full view of the first cataract.”

Notman, John, 1848, describing his designs for the Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va. (quoted in Greiff 1979: 143)

“Five bridges are necessary on the whole route. These may be readily and simply constructed of the trunks of the white oaks that have been cut down, laid on abutments of dry stone walling on each side of the runs or brooks, built without mortar; the granite on the ground might be easily quarried to serve the purpose; a simple rustic railing made of the branches of the trees cut down (with the bark on) placed on each side, will be in better keeping with the place and purpose than the most expensive railing planed and painted.”