Tarr Steps, Somerset, England - Philatelic Photographs on Waymarking.com

In 1968 Great Britain issued a set of four postage stamps depicting bridges. Actually, they show the evolution of bridge construction over the centuries from the middle ages up through modern times. In addition to this bridge, the set includes an eighteenth-century stone arch bridge, a nineteenth-century suspension bridge and a modern viaduct.

Exmoor National Park in Devon and Somerset Counties is known primarily for rolling hills, open moors and rugged coastlines. But it also contains an archeological gem: the Tarr Steps bridge. This stone bridge is known as a clapper bridge from a Latin word for pile of stones. It was once believed that this bridge dated from the Bronze Age, but more recent scholarship places its origin in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The stamp describes it as prehistoric.

At over 50 meters long, the Tarr Steps is the longest surviving Medieval clapper bridge. Some of the stone slabs weigh almost 2 tons, nevertheless on several occasions they’ve been washed away in floods. Today, each stone has been numbered so that they may be precisely replaced should they be dislodged by flood waters.

Stamp Issuing Country: Great Britain Date of Issue: 29-Apr-1968 Denomination: 4d Color: multicolored Stamp Type: Single Stamp Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   02/02/2016 BRISTOLIAN visited it