Wansford Old Bridge
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Visit websiteWansford is a village on the Great North Road (A1) near Peterborough and five miles south of Stamford. It is actually two separate villages under different parish councils. Wansford Parish Council, within the area of Peterborough Unitary Authority, comprises the village north of, and including, Wansford Old Bridge. The village to the south of Wansford Old Bridge is represented by Sibson-cum-Stibbington Parish Council and comes under Huntingdonshire District Council. It was split between two counties until 1965 when it became under one authority, Huntingdon and Peterborough, part of Cambridgeshire. The boundary post between the Soke of Peterborough (the north side of the Nene) and Huntingdonshire (the south bank) is still there halfway across the bridge.
In 1929 the Great North Road (A1) moved from its centuries old route along London Road and past The Haycock Inn, across the old bridge to a new by-pass, bridging the Nene to the east of Wansford. Ever increasing levels of traffic necessitated a second by-pass in 1975, in parallel and adjacent to the first. This second by-pass later became the southbound carriageway of the A1 with the earlier, 1929 by-pass now only carrying northbound traffic.
The Old Bridge across the Nene has carried the earliest versions of the Great North Road, probably since Saxon times. Its current status as a single track minor road bridge is the result of at least three different stages of construction but what we see today is mainly from about 1600. It is a long and narrow multi-span stone structure.
The main street of the village is a remarkably well preserved example of a village on an early main road, complete with coaching inn. This is perhaps because the village was bypassed early in 1929, before the normal structures associated with a modern main road had appeared.
Wansford lies just west of the A1 at the point of crossing with the A47. The Old Bridge is just north of the Haycock Coaching Inn.
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