gallery

Mary Keightley 1854 - 1946
Chagford Bridge Devonshire 1874

inscribed as title and dated " 1874"

pencil and watercolour
21 x 29 cm.
Notes

This is a road bridge that spans the Teign River just outside of Chagford. The bridge has 3 arches and has been in place, it is believed, since the 1590s. There are maps somewhere that say a bridge was here from around 1200, but this structure is believed to have been built in the 1590s. The road over this bridge leads from Chagford to Murchington and is pretty narrow and only really passable with a car. Road bridge over River Teign. C16 or C17. Voussoirs and cutwaters of granite ashlar, the rest of granite stone rubble. The 3 arches of the bridge are plain vaults rising to barely perceptible points and have soffit-chamfered hoodmoulds over the voussoirs. The center arch is a little taller than the others. The cutwaters are relatively narrow. They have pointed ends that are carried up to the parapet providing small refuges. Also, the abutments are chamfered back to the river banks and these too rise to the parapet. There is a band of dressed stone at road level which ramps to the centre. The parapet has plain flat coping. This is a very attractive bridge. There was a bridge mentioned here in 1224 and a bridge, possibly this one, was repaired by the parish between 1560-92. If it is C16 it would be the one mentioned by Leland. Scheduled Ancient Monument 156. Source: Devon SMR.

Artist biography

Mary Keightley (1854-1946) was the youngest daughter of Archibald Keightley (1795-1877), executor of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s estate. She was a good amateur artist. Archibald Keightley (1795-1877), who was a solicitor who was the executor for Sir Thomas Lawrence, who had died earlier in 1830. Mr Keightley was responsible for the sale of Sir Thomas's collections, some of which were not paid for!  There is a very interesting story about Sir Thomas's collection of old master drawings which were part of the assets Mr Keightley hadto dispose of. Following his work as a solicitor, Mr Keightley a few years later became the Registrar for the Charterhouse School, where he remained for 39 years.

Mary Keightley was born in 1854, in Charterhouse, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom, her father, Archibald Keightley, was 58 and her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Yates, was 41. She lived in London, England for about 20 years and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom in 1891. She died on 20 April 1946, in Camberley, Surrey, England, United Kingdom, at the age of 93.