Note 44 — Chapter I · ROADS AND BRIDGES

See Hist. MSS. Commission, 9th Report, part i. p. 284. On the Rochester bridge, at first a wooden one, later rebuilt in stone, and on its upkeep, see “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. iii. p. 254, 21 Ric. II, 1397. A view of the bridge appears on several seals, some reproduced in De Gray Birch, “Seals in . . . the British Museum,” London, 1887, 2 vols., No. 5336. On this important bridge and its biography, see C. T. Flower, “Public Works in Mediæval Law,” 1905, Selden Society, I., p. 203. Like many others, this very frequented bridge, on the road from London to Canterbury, and which existed long before the Conquest, was first of wood, then of stone, and is now (since 1856) of iron.