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Wednesday 1 July 2020

From Needham Parish Council Archives


In December 1939, at the request of a Mr Welham Clarke of Henstead Lodge, the Clerk of Needham Parish Council wrote to the Clerk of Weybread Parish Council to inform him that the bridge at Luck’s Mill was in an unsafe state and trusts that his Board will carry out the necessary repairs. The resident provides the information that a two arched brick bridge in good order was removed in 1923 and replaced with steel as part of State Aid Scheme for the relief of unemployment. Predictably, Weybread attempted to pass on responsibility to Norfolk County Council. They however wrote in 1941 to say that the matter had been investigated and it had been established conclusively that the ownership and repair did not rest with them.
As the problem now returned to Needham, the Parish Clerk escalated the matter by writing on the 14th February 1942 to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. A reply was received a month later stating that in the view of the Minister the bridge would appear to be in private ownership and consequently the responsibility of the landowner.
Nothing now remains of the Mill that was located some distance from the village centre but the bridge, as it happens, has just been repaired. What is striking from the correspondence is that the original complainant states that Where did children come from that children attending school cross the bridge daily, also many working people in the district use it. They made a long journey on foot across fields to the village school? It was a different world then.


Andrew Major


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