ONLY one remains. One pedestrian crossing over the River Itchen along the Weirs, the riverside path between the High Street and Wharf Hill.

An Ordnance Survey map from 1895 shows three footways across the watercourse.

Now only the bridge at the garden of Georgian Kingsland House in Chesil Street remains. The only signs of the other two are the hole in the wall that held the metal beams on one and the concrete island created to support the structure. Belgarum presumes the bridges got too expensive to maintain or to insure.

At one point in the recent past there was a proposal by St John's Winchester Charity for a redevelopment for housing for the elderly next to the Chesil Theatre around a decade ago. A footbridge was proposed as part of that scheme that would have given the residents a shorter route into the city centre and avoided the unpleasantly busy traffic-clogged Chesil Street.

Alas it never came to pass, and people were denied the pleasure of walking over the pellucid waters of the famous chalk stream.