Saturday 21st January 1871 & Saturday 4th February 1871
The Bridges In Wiltshire
Warminster Herald, 21st January 1871:
THE BRIDGES IN WILTSHIRE. By the abolition of various turnpike trusts in Wiltshire, the maintenance of as many as 47 additional bridges has fallen upon the county rate, the expense having hitherto been borne by the turnpike trustees. There are on the late Devizes trust – 10 bridges; Beckhampton ditto, 5; Chippenham ditto, 6; Corsham ditto, 2; Fisherton and Heytesbury ditto, 2; Sarum and Ealing ditto, 10; Warminster ditto, 2; Trowbridge ditto, 9; and Frome ditto, 1.
Warminster Herald, 4th February 1871:
To the Editor of the ‘Warminster Herald.’ BRIDGES IN  WILTSHIRE. Dear Sir, Will you allow me to say, in contradiction of a statement which appeared accidentally in the Herald of the 21st inst., (and in the columns of some of your contemporaries), that comparatively no ‘additional’ expense can have fallen upon the Wiltshire County Rate ‘by the abolition of various Turnpike Trusts.’ Many of the bridges mentioned by you (together with one hundred yards length of road approach to each and every bridge) have been maintained by the county a very long time, quite independently of Turnpike Trusts, with which they have been only locally connected. The two bridges at Boreham, and one other within the limits of the late Warminster Trust, have been County Bridges for 30 years or more, the late Frome Trust  included two of our County Bridges; and in fact, with scarcely an exception, the 47 bridges enumerated have been already dealt with by the County authorities. Yours truly, T. CRUSE. Warminster, 31st Jan. 1871.