"Everybody loves a bridge. They are essentially romantic objects - brave, adventurous, usually handsome or at least interesting to look at, often magnificently idiosyncratic and every single one of them a seperate individual with its own personality, pedigree and background, each time to be freshly encountered and enjoyed."
Bridges. Sir Hugh Casson. 1963
The Ponthaugh Bridge is located where the Pont Burn flows into the Derwent and was built for the new turnpike road to Shotley bridge in 1835. it is now by-passed by a new stretch of road but can still be used by road traffic, despite its narrowness. In July 1828 an old wooden bridge was swept away by floods.
The Derwent here is surrounded not by woods but unusually, by fields, but the trees soon make a re-appearance after the river flows under the adjacent new bridge to enter Chopwell Wood. The bridge links Rowlands Gill with Hamsterley Mill on the Shotley Bridge main road.