This is the top section of a strip map which shows Milton Abbas lake and the course of the Bere River through Milborne St Andrew and Bere Regis. It was used in the legal cases against Lord Milton brought by his downstream neighbour Edmund Moreton Pleydell in 1796 and 1797. Pleydell charged Milton with interfering with the ater supply to Pleydell’s estate by damming the Bere Stream. The three arched bridge was set into the dam and was intended to allow an outflow from the lake when it reached its maximum height. Although the dam and bridge were built in 1790-1792, ten years after Capability Brown’s death, they were probably based on his plans and Samuel Lapidge, Brown’s principal assistant, was paid as a consultant for the work.
As the lake failed to achieve its proposed height, it is likely that the bridge was either demolished or filled in not long after Lord Milton’s death in 1798, and its traces may remain within the dam under the present road.
For further information on this dispute see our blogs of August 21 2020, Pleydell v Earl of Dorchester; and June 7 2022, Milton Abbas Lake. A fuller discussion is Clive Barnes, Lord Milton and the Lake, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 2023This scruffy photocopy, undated, is all the recorded evidence of Capability Brown’s design. This is the only occurrence of a “three arched bridge”, which is one of Brown’s signature designs.
Milton Abbas Local History Group, Dorset, UK 