Teston Bridge is a road bridge across the River Medway

River Medway

The River Medway, which is almost entirely in Kent, England, flows for from just inside the West Sussex border to the point where it enters the Thames Estuary....

, between Teston

Teston

Teston is a village in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. It is located on the A26 road out of Maidstone, four miles from the town centre. There is a narrow stone bridge over the River Medway here....

 and West Farleigh

West Farleigh

West Farleigh is a village and civil parish four miles southwest of Maidstone in the county of Kent. The parish has a population of approximately 450, and is bounded by the civil parishes of East Farleigh, Hunton, Yalding, and over the River Medway by Wateringbury, Teston and Barming. The village...

 in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England.

History

The bridge was constructed in the 14th or 15th centuries and comprises six arches of various heights and widths, the middle three of which span the river.

Three of the arches were rebuilt at the beginning of the 19th century and the parapet may also have been rebuilt. The bridge is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Description

Teston Bridge is built of coursed

Course (architecture)

A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...

 rag-stone

Rag-stone

Rag-stone is a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones which are quarried in thin pieces, such as the Horsham sandstone, Yorkshire stone, the slate stones, but this is more properly flag or slab work. By rag-stone, near London, is meant an excellent material from the...

 with ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

 capping stones to the parapets. The bridge is narrow, only wide enough to permit traffic to pass in one direction at a time and the parapets feature pedestrian refuges continued up from the cutwaters

Starling (architecture)

In architecture, a starling or, more commonly, cutwater is a defensive bulwark, usually built with pilings or bricks, surrounding the supports of a bridge or similar construction...

 on each side. It carries the B2163 road, which is crossed on the level

Level crossing

A level crossing occurs where a railway line is intersected by a road or path onone level, without recourse to a bridge or tunnel. It is a type of at-grade intersection. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion...

 by the Medway Valley Line

Medway Valley Line

The Medway Valley Line is the name given to the railway line linking and the Medway Towns with and onward to , and London St Pancras International...

just west of the bridge. The crossing was the site of , which was open from 1909–59.