Note (return) — LYDFORD BRIDGE.

The scenery round the village is singularly picturesque: one of its most prominent objects, The Bridge is represented in the Engraving. It bears great analogy, in situation and character, to the celebrated Devil's Bridge in Wales. It consists of one rude arch, thrown across a narrow, rocky chasm, which sinks nearly eighty feet from the level of the road. At the bottom of this channel the small river Lyd is heard rattling through its contracted course. The singularity of this scene is not perceived in merely passing over the bridge: to appreciate its character, and comprehend its awfully impressive effects, it is necessary to see the bridge, the chasm, and the roaring water, from different projecting crags which impend over the river. At a little distance below the bridge, "the fissure gradually spreads its rocky jaws; the bottom opens; and, instead of the dark precipices which have hitherto overhung and obscured the struggling river, it now emerges into day, and rolls its murmuring current through a winding valley, confined within magnificent banks, darkened with woods, which swell into bold promontories, or fall back into sweeping recesses, till they are lost to the eye in distance. Thickly shaded by trees, which shoot out from the sides of the rent, the scene at Lydford Bridge is not so terrific as it would have been, had a little more light been let in upon the abyss, just sufficient to produce a darkness visible. As it is, however, the chasm cannot be regarded without shuddering; nor will the stoutest heart meditate unappalled upon the dreadful anecdotes connected with the spot."4