Magdalen Bridge

Magdalen Bridge crosses the River Cherwell just east of Oxford’s city centre, beside Magdalen College which gives it its name. The river here splits into two channels around an island, and the bridge links the High Street on the west side with The Plain roundabout on the east. For centuries this crossing has been used, with the first known mention in 1004 describing a wooden or drawbridge structure. By the 16th century a stone bridge stood in its place, nearly 460 metres long with twenty arches. By the 1770s the old bridge had become unsafe, its arches weakened by neglect and floods until parts collapsed in 1772. The present stone bridge was designed by John Gwynn and built between 1772 and 1790 by John Randall. It has eleven arches of different sizes, with three large semicircular arches on each branch of the river and two smaller ones for towpaths. A single elliptical arch in the centre only carries water when the island floods. The bridge was originally 8.2 metres wide, with one roadway and two pavements, and took until 1790 to finish all details. Gwynn planned elaborate balustrades with sculptures and sphinxes by Henry Webber, but these were abandoned in 1782. The balustrades have since been replaced because of pollution damage. Every year on 1 May the bridge becomes the centre of Oxford’s May Morning celebrations, drawing large crowds before dawn. Students once jumped from the bridge despite the shallow water, leading to injuries and now a temporary closure each year. The bridge appears in poems by John Betjeman and in Max Beerbohm’s 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson. It also features briefly in Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. The river below carries leisure punts filled with visitors, while the bridge itself carries both modern traffic and the memory of centuries of crossings.