There is one at Crowland, a curious three-branched structure which for many a year stood at the confluence of the Catwater drain and two streamlets, the Welland and the Nyne. To-day no water flows under this bridge, and common little modern houses do not make pretty pictures when they are framed by the arches. There are three pointed arches, with their abutments at the angles of an equilateral triangle; they meet in the middle, and form three roadways and three watercourses. They have three stone ribs apiece, and the nine ribs meet in the centre I note, too, that these arches were built not by a bridgeman, but by a mason skilled in church work, for their rings are moulded elaborately as in Gothic windows and doorways. As for the style of architecture, it is not older than the beginning of the fourteenth century; but a much earlier bridge at Crowland, probably of wood, was famed for its triangular shape, and mentioned in a charter of the year 943, when Edmund was King. At the south-west entrance of Crowland Bridge, beyond the five steps, there is a rough-hewn statue that represents a crowned and bearded figure seated up high against the parapet walls, in an attitude of sorrow, with arms folded (and perhaps they may be bound together) over a long robe. Time has frayed and scarred this uncouth sculpture, but not without leaving some mellow lines and planes. The archæology of guesswork has called this effigy by various names, such as Ethelbald, and Saint Guthlac, and Henry II, but I prefer to look upon it as a simple Pietà chiselled by a mason who had been trained to do enniched figures for church decoration--work without detail, to make at a distance a broad effect. This conjecture is in accord with the ecclesiastical moulding of the archstones, and with the mediæval custom that united bridges to Christianity by means of sacred emblems. Crowland Abbey ruled over the district, so one of the Abbots may have built the bridge; and perhaps the pointed arches, three in number, with their triple ribs, and their three pathways, and the three streams of water, may have been intended as symbols of the Trinity. If so,--and there is nothing in this view to clash with the spirit of the Mediæval Church,--then a Pietà turned toward the west would be the most beautiful symbol of that Light which went down with the sun, and then rose again through the dark into the dusk, and through the dusk into a dawn where faith for ever dwells. On the other hand, if the crowned figure represents a mere earthly king, I know not why Ethelbald should be chosen, for his reign of two years was not a creative time and he died in 860, just eighty-three years before Crowland’s triangular bridge was alluded to in the charter of the year 943. Alfred, Edward the Elder, and Athelstan--these kings in succession were nearer to the charter, and their longer reigns were more notable than the short hours of Ethelbald. Alfred we should prefer, of course, but he has been