The earliest printed county bridge survey? Salford Hundred, 1781

Sixteenth century legislation empowered Justices of the Peace in English counties to manage local bridges. For the next two centuries some magistrates took on a more active role in county bridge management, appointing bridge masters and raising more funds. In some cases these powers were delegated to administrative subdivisions, such the Hundreds in Lancashire. Some bridge masters were asked to prepare lists of bridges for which they were responsible, generally in manuscript form. In Salford Hundred’s case in 1781 their bridge master, Edmond Holme was asked to prepare such a list for printing. His report, probably the first such list to survive, tells us much about the state of Salford’s bridges at the time, and is compared here with county bridge management elsewhere. Conclusions are drawn about what it tells us about Salford’s bridges in the late eighteenth century.