It is not known where or how, if at all, the Romans permanently bridged the Trent hereabouts; probably they were content with fords and ferries. In the Middle Ages, however, several fine stone bridges were erected over the river; there was a very long one of thirty-six arches at Burton in the twelfth century, and most likely there would then be no other between that town and Nottingham, some twenty miles distant. At any rate, the first record we have of Swarkeston Bridge is in the year 1276, and the oldest parts of it remaining—which appear to be the original work—appertain to the thirteenth century. Swarkeston is about eight miles below Burton, and the bridge, which is nearly a mile in length, lies north and south. It takes its name from the village of Swarkeston at its northern end, though most of the bridge, being south of the Trent, is in the parish of Stanton, which latter place is indebted to the bridge for the title that distinguishes it from the multitude of Stantons elsewhere. The portion of the structure which actually spans the Trent is a shapely, well-designed and very substantial modern bridge on five round arches, put up at the close of the eighteenth century; but the special feature about Swarkeston Bridge is that, after crossing the river proper, it is continued as a raised causeway right across the low-lying meadows of the Trent valley. It is in this long causeway that all interest centres, for there—although the bridge has been widened, and at different times repaired and renewed incongruously—we have the true route-line of the causeway, and much original work still remaining. The necessity for this extension is very obvious to anyone who has seen, as I have several times, the river in flood, when Hotspur’s “smug and silver Trent” becomes a turbid, surging sea, many miles in extent, completely covering all the meadows within range of vision. The causeway is provided with culverts and archways to let the roaring waters pass through at such periods. [Illustration: Swarkeston Bridge.] It has been conjectured, with some degree of probability, that the Trent was first spanned by a bridge at Swarkeston to accommodate the advance of King John’s army to the north towards the end of the year 1215. If this was the case, it must have been one of wooden piles, provided it was erected in a hurry. A temporary erection of this kind, in the place of a treacherous ford, would prove so useful that it would soon be followed by one of stone. At all events, records show that a bridge had been established here a long time before the accession of Edward I. In 1276, when inquiries were made throughout the kingdom as to exactions and irregularities during the much-troubled latter years of Henry III., it is entered on the _Hundred Rolls_ that the merchants of the soke of Melbourne had not for some three years paid toll for passage over Swarkeston Bridge, which toll had been assigned by the King to the borough of Derby.