Yeolmbridge is a village in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlan ...

(but within the boundaries of the historic county of Devon), two and a half miles north of Launceston.

Yeolm Bridge

The village takes its name from the bridge, Yeolm Bridge which crosses the River Ottery and is

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...

and a

Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

. Built about 1350, it is considered the oldest surviving and best built of medieval Cornish bridges. In 1951

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

described it as Cornwall's "most ambitious" bridge.

Quarry

Yeolmbridge Quarry SSSI is 250 m to the east of the village. The quarry is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

(GCR) site, as the type–locality of the Yeolmbridge Formation; a black

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especia ...

which shows the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...

– Carboniferous boundary around 359 million years ago with a sequence of fossils.

Notable people

Joan Rendell Joan Rendell MBE (1921 – 4 May 2010) was an English historian, writer (mainly on Cornish subjects), and phillumenist. Life Rendell was born in Plymouth, Devon, in 1921. She was the daughter of Gervase Rendell, born 1879 in Eastry, Kent. For m ...

, an English historian, writer and phillumenist, was resident at Yeolmbridge in the latter part of her life.

References

Villages in Cornwall Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1990 {{NorthCornwall-geo-stub