Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/408

 ©rirjinal ©ocunieiits* REMARKS ON THE CONTRACT FOR BUILDING CATTERICK BRIDGE. The following observations on the contract for building a bridge at Cat- teriek, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, dated in 1421-2, have been made, in order to assist towards the explanation of certain obscure passages and obsolete terms occurring in that curious document, which have not been clearly explained in the former part of the Journal.' It would have been more satisfactory if reference could be made to plans and sections of the bridge, such as accompanied the printed copy of a contract for building Catterick church, dated in 1412.^ The value of original documents of this nature, in reviving and elucidating the terms of art used by our old builders, is too obvious to every student of antient architecture to need any recommendation of them to his careful perusal. A comparison of Catterick bridge with that over the river Tecs at Barnard Castle, which probably had been erected not long before this at Catterick, and to which reference is made in this contract, as to a model which was to be copied with certain modifications, would also, no doubt, have illustrated the terms which now seem so obscure ; but, unluckily, the present bridge at Barnard Castle is not the building spoken of in the Catterick contract, • — for that bridge was ruined in the insurrection headed by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, in 1569, when Barnard Castle was held by Sir George Bowes, of Strcatlam, for eleven days, against the insur- gents, to whom he was at last obliged to give it up. The bridge now standing at Barnard Castle Avas built in 1596, and has only two arches. Catterick bridge was to have two pillars, two landstathes, and three arches. So far, the description is clear, and needs no comment. It was also to have five courses of cgeoves, of the same thickness, and like the cgcovcs of Barnard Castle bridge. The term here used raises a diflicult question. I cannot accept the explanations suggested in page 60, and can only imagine that it refers to the ribs which are commonly found in the arches of the bridges of the middle ages ; of which there were to be here five in each of the three arches. But this conjecture is not borne out by the form of the arches of Catterick bridge, which are plain, and have no ribs ; nor can we now appeal to the bridge at Barnard Castle for elucidation of this part of the contract. Here it seems necessary to observe, that the English word ogee is only used to designate a certain form of moulding, composed of two curved lines, — one convex, the other concave.^ And this word appears to liavo only come into use amongst our artists since the revival of classic architecture. But the tern) ogive in the French language bears a very different meaning ; and we find the most intelligent writers on the Con- See pp. 56 — 62, in tliis volume. curious and valu.able work, although the archi- Publislietl in 4lo., 18,')4, Weale, London ; tccturc of the church is mean and homelj'. vith tliirtecn plates of Catterick Cluirch, ^ gee Professor Willis' Architectural No- drawn by Anthony Salvin, F.S.A., Architect, mcnelaturc, published by the Cambridge Edited by the Rev. James Raine. It is a Antiquarian Society, 1844. The learned