Ashland Covered Bridge

Ashland Covered Bridge

Ashland Covered Bridge Photo by Dave Tabler
c. 1860. Barley Mill Rd. over Red Clay Creek

The fifty-four-foot, one-lane covered bridge is “plank-pin,” its beams secured with big hardwood pegs or “trunnels.” It uses the densely latticed timber-truss construction popularized nationally in the nineteenth century by architect Ithiel Town. Covered bridges were once numerous in the United States but have dwindled to only 800 or so, with just one original left in Delaware, now that Wooddale Bridge (CH32) has washed away. There were twelve as recently as 1930. Steel I-beams were inserted under the deck in 1982.

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