Some defensive bridges in Old England had an important look as late as the reign of George III. This applies to the Welsh Bridge at Shrewsbury, which had a noble tower at the entrance that looked towards Wales. Perhaps it belonged to the reign of Edward I, as a statue of Llewellyn was placed over one of the arches. At the present time our fortified bridges are minor specimens. The “auld brig” over the Forth at Stirling, once “the key of the Highlands,” is the most interesting architecturally. He still retains a defensive gateway at each end, and his four arches, now closed to traffic, have a bold and pleasant rhythm. They date from the last years of the fourteenth century. From this century also Warkworth Bridge comes to us; it is a smaller structure, with a triangular recess at each side, projecting from the parapet into the central pier. The gate-tower is at some little distance from the abutment; it has a low and narrow archway under which carters swear unhopefully, believing that their wagons will stick fast. A person who was present on the occasion told M. J. J. Jusserand that a gipsy’s caravan, not long ago, was stopped at the tower on Warkworth Bridge, and waited there while the pavement was being hollowed out to make the passage deep enough for a safe journey. The pier midstream is triangular, and almost as sharp as an arrow-head. This shape is very common in mediæval cutwaters, but it belongs to a technical routine which cannot be regarded as practical. Floods cannot eddy around the flat surfaces of a triangle; they are cut into waves that soon break with an increasing force against the piers and spandrils. On the other hand, when a cutwater is shaped like a Gothic drop arch, or like a tierce-point arch, it meets the current with a much bolder wedge of stone, whose curved sides are better playgrounds for water in spate. Cutwaters of this improved sort are uncommon in mediæval bridges, but some are to be found in French work of the Limousin. Viollet-le-Duc was the first critic who called attention to this technical matter, and no pontist should fail to note how cutwaters are designed. For example, in a bird’s-eye view of the bridge at Avignon the buttressed piers jut out on each side beyond the narrow footway, looking like boats that support a long line of planks; and I have no doubt that Saint Bénézet had in mind this figure of boats when he planned his roadway over “the arrowy Rhône.” It is far from my wish to compare the little Warkworth Bridge with this French masterpiece, but let us note in its cutwaters a similar character.