Misunderstood Bridges

Dotted around British waterways on old maps you'll often find curious locations marked as 'Roman bridges'. Often hard to spot at all without knowing they're there before hand. Drystone built, using existing rocky outcrops of river banks to span a narrow gorge-like part of the river. A lack of parapets tend to suggest their use as packhorse bridges. Though examples like this one in an ancient woodland on the west coast of Wales are commonly known as a "Roman Bridge", almost all of them certainly aren't. Their design was borrowed from Romans for centuries after their departure. One of many simple influences taken from the occupiers. They more likely tend to be early-post Medieval in date, with this one having been dated at c1680. Still, this shouldn't take from the fact that a hand-constructed archway to still be standing after almost four centuries of little to no maintenance is a testament to the masons who built it, and nature has gloriously become one with the stone after so many years.