MANY people were shocked when they saw the news of the partial collapse of the much-loved and nationally-famed Powick Bridge recently.

The bridge itself consists of two parts.

One section crosses the Mill Race or Laugherne Brook and sits closest to Worcester.

The other crosses the actual River Teme, leading up to Powick village and church.

Today bridges can be passed over without a second thought.

Sometimes flooding, roadworks or even a traffic incident can make you realise their importance.

In wartime they can be the difference between a great victory or a complete disaster.

During the Battle of Worcester in 1651, Sir William Keith, a loyal Scottish Royalist, was tasked with the defence of Powick Bridge.

He knew an attack would come from Upton-upon-Severn and therefore sent some men to the ridge occupied by the village of Powick and its church.

He then followed the tactics of the day by destroying two arches on Powick Bridge.

The two arches covering the Mill Race were demolished by hand, using picks, iron stakes and hammers.

This had also been done to the bridges at Upton-upon-Severn and Bransford.

Earlier in the war many bridges saw similar destruction.

When a similar act was carried out at Pershore in 1644 over 100 men were killed when it collapsed whilst they were dismantling some of the arches.

Planks were usually laid across the resultant gap to control who crossed the river and removed to stop an enemy force from using it.

At the start of the Battle of Worcester, Sir William Keith's men fled Powick Church after they fired on the enemy advance guard of Generals Fleetwood and Deane.

This much-larger Parliamentarian force caused the Scots to flee back to the bridge.

Once on the other bank, the planks were removed like the raising of a drawbridge.

The Parliamentarians were tied up here for quite some time which angered Cromwell who was on the other side of the River Severn.

The Royalist Scots exchanged fire across the river with the Parliamentarians.

Eventually Colonel Twistleton and a detachment of Parliament Cavalry crossed some planks thrown over the demolished arches of Bransford Bridge.

At the same time, Colonel Haines and another group of men forded the River Teme a few hundred yards upstream.

Sir William Keith, who observed the action from the old Water Mill, now long gone, would have also seen more Parliamentarian Cavalry appearing across the fields towards the confluence of the Severn.

These enemy troops were crossing a makeshift bridge of boats and this would have meant Sir William Keith risked being encircled and completely cut off from falling back into Worcester over the city bridge.

What was originally planned as a retreat soon became a devastating rout.

Sir William Keith was captured near Powick Mill.

Generals Fleetwood and Deane then ordered planks to be placed across the damaged Powick Bridge, allowing further troops to pursue the Royalists back into Worcester.

In the months after the Battle of Worcester the destroyed arches of Powick Bridge were rebuilt and repairs made to other sections of the structure.

Further work was carried out throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, predominantly using brick.

Today you do have to visually scan the bridge from the bank to find traces of the original medieval bridge among the patchwork of much later repairs.

Powick Bridge was over 200 years old by the time the Civil War began at Powick in 1642.

By the time of the 1651 battle, the bridge was still very much in demand and used by pack horses, waggons, carts and obviously people on foot.

A new iron and stone bridge was constructed nearby in 1837 to give the old bridge a quiet retirement as traffic increased in number and size.

A timber bridge would have been built in the early medieval period by the monks of Malvern Priory to improve fording points but we know much of the current stone bridge was constructed in 1447.

This June the bridge will be celebrating 100 years of being a Scheduled Monument.

A time when people realised the importance of this bridge and knew it had to be protected for future generations.

After all, a bridge links two sides and this particular bridge directly links us with our shared past.

Whilst a plan is formulated to repair our much-loved Powick Bridge, please stay clear of the structure and join me in hoping the river level stays low for the rest of the winter to allow it to be repaired.