CORNWALL he set his heart on erecting a bridge. With the generous assistance of Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, he contrived to raise the necessary money ; but the sands formed a difficulty that at first seemed insuperable. It was apparently useless to go on sinking piers ; they were only sucked in and rendered useless. At last the vicar dreamed that he was shearing a flock of sheep, brought to him by an angel, and that on the wool which fell into the water he reared his bridge. Some, more prosaically, say that the idea of using wool was the architect's; in any case, packs of wool were placed in the bed of the river, and on these the piers were sunk, with such good effect that they have stood to this day. This is not the only instance ; Bideford Bridge is said to have been raised in the same manner, and there is also a tradition that Queen Eleanor reared London Bridge upon woolsacks. Leland tells us that the vicar " began the bridge, and with great paine and studie, good people putting their help theretoj finished it with XVII. fair and great uniform arches". Of these seventeen arches one is now built up ; the bridge, 3 20 ft. long, though widened some forty years since, remains the best specimen of its kind surviving in England. Lovibond not only procured the cost of its erection, but con- trived to leave behind a fund for its mainte- nance. Truly this fifteenth century clergyman merited the old Roman title of Pontifex. Speci- ally notable are the protecting angles for the safety of pedestrians. But Lovibond not only 258
