61529 There is some doubt as to the origins of the name 'Bracebridge'. The second element is derived from the Old English 'brycg' meaning 'bridge'. The first element may derive from the Old English 'braesc' meaning 'brushwood'. Alternatively it may derive from 'brace' which is an Old French word borrowed into Middle English, which refers to an arch or support of a bridge. The second alternative would be unusual, perhaps even unique in the Domesday Book in that it combines English and French words so soon after the Conquest, but it is possible. {1}{2} The first alternative is lent weight by the discovery of a possible ford, which is recorded in 'Memoires of the Geological Survey - The Geology of the County of Lincoln', 1868, page 166, which says "About 1 and a half furlongs north west of Bracebridge Church two rows of piles 10 feet apart are sunk in the peat and rise at present 2 feet above the water. A stone causeway has at sometime rested on them and the place has been a ford across the Witham. Fragments of the causeway, broken pottery, gold coin, and a portion of human skull have been found." This account of the site bears a resemblance to a site at Scaftworth in Nottinghamshire. A Roman road which crosses the low-lying valley of the River Idle has been found to have been built on a timber raft which survives within the peat deposits of this area. Recent excavation of part of this roadway found evidence for an extensive wooden causeway with rows of upright posts. The roadway consisted of three parallel round stems plus much small roundwood (brushwood) over this and creating a road surface was a layer of turves. The discovery of a medieval shoe on top of the road suggests that the road was still in use in the medieval period. The use of the name 'Bracebridge', if it is taken to derive from 'brushwood bridge', would also suggest the continued use of the bridge into the medieval period. {3}{4}{5} Tolls were collected in Bracebridge during the medieval period. It is very likely that, as the City authorities were responsible for the maintenance of part of the bridge over the Witham, the toll was a bridge toll. In 1565 Alderman Thomas Fulbeck was granted the City's rights and interest of the water of a half part of the great bridge for 70 years without rent. He was responsible for all repairs to the bridge and its arches which belonged to the City, which suggests that if there was a brushwood bridge, it had been replaced by this time. The City remained responsible until the Muncipal Reform Act in 1835 when responsibility passed to Kesteven. The bridge is recorded as having seven arches at this time. {6}