Painshill Suspension Bridge

Painshill or Pains/ Paines/Pain's Hill suspension bridge, Cobham

NO LONGER EXTANT

1833 'Pain’s Hill, Wm. Cooper, Esq.— Considerable improvements have been made here since it came into the hands of its present proprietor. The public road has been widened, and a new bridge, on the suspension principle, thrown across it, to connect the ground on both sides, in lieu of the old wooden one, formerly used for the same purpose. ..... the suspending chains of the bridge rise abruptly out of the green turf, without the slightest architectural preparation, than which we know nothing more offensive to a cultivated eye. This can never be the work of an architect or engineer ; it must have been done by one of the very commonest workmen employed in putting up the bridge. The chain ought to proceed from the centre of a proper basis of hewn stone, and that basis ought to be of a peculiar kind, to suit the apparent strain upon it.'