Court ordered a bridge build after landowner Theophania Blackett blocked access to All Saints Church.
This inscription hides a key detail, though. The Queen’s Bench court in London actually ordered this project; it was not her voluntary act at all.
Theophania resided at Sockburn Hall near Darlington. She built the Girsby bridge to allow people to cross the Tees for church, since All Saints Church was in Girsby, North Yorkshire. She landed in court with the Darlington Highway Board because she blocked access to the church via a private timber bridge, disliking people crossing her land.
Theophania and her husband, Henry Blackett, had bridge ties. They had a history with All Saints Church that started back in 1838, when Henry paid for a Tees bridge. William Hambley of London designed it, and it cost £1,200, roughly £1m today.
The red sandstone pillars came from the riverbed. In addition, Baltic fir timber from Lithuania formed the carriageway. The couple also focused on All Saints Church, where people worshipped for over 1,000 years.
They wanted a ruin for their home’s view; a place for reflection and pondering time’s passage. They dismantled the original church in 1838. Only empty windows remained as a silhouette.
They then built a new All Saints Church, standing high on the Tees’ opposite bank in Girsby, and even moved Sockburn’s bells there. After Henry passed away in 1856, Theophania blocked access to ordinary people, hating peasants passing her hall, which led to the court case.
The Board won the case against her. Consequently, Theophania had to reopen the footpath. Instead, she funded a new metal bridge, sitting below Girsby church, named Bridle Bridge to divert people from her land.
This kept her undisturbed until she died in 1877. The family’s original bridge washed away, but the new bridge remains standing today, with a public bridleway crossing it. The bridge proves the court’s dedication, ensuring churchgoers could get to their church.