Grade Ruan footpath reopens after new timber bridges built

Something as ordinary as a way across a stream had been missing from this stretch of countryside for months. Getting it fixed took longer than usual, because the ground here had other ideas.

📷Credit: Cormac

A path cut off

A popular countryside footpath near Grade Ruan had been closed for an extended period after the two bridges that once carried walkers across the site came to the end of their life and failed. Anyone wanting to complete the route was left with no way through.

📷Credit: Cormac

Difficult ground, a summer deadline

Replacing them fell to Cormac‘s Environment Structures team, working alongside the landowners at the site. Challenging ground conditions made the replacement work particularly complex, but the team got the two new timber bridges finished in time for the peak summer season.

📷Credit: Cormac

An older crossing, kept safe

The site is also home to a historic clapper bridge, and the project took care to preserve it alongside the new structures. It means the feature can continue to be appreciated by future generations, sitting right next to the modern timber crossings built to replace what came before them.

Back to the farm shop and the campsite

With both new bridges in place, the route is reconnected to a nearby farm shop and a campsite, giving walkers their way back to two of the places the path used to lead. The work by Cormac was made possible through capital funding from Cornwall Council.

The clapper bridge, older than either of the two structures now standing beside it, remains exactly where it has always been.

📷Credit: Cormac