OUR weekend meanderings took us along the high banks of the River Tees to the west of Winston (Winston's near Gainford, inbetween Darlington and Barnard Castle).

It's a pretty walk, although if I'm very critical it's a little too farmlandy for me with the river tantalisingly out of view at the bottom of the huge, tree-lined cliffs.

It wasn't out of earshot, though, and the Ordnance Survey map notes that there are waterfalls down there somewhere.

My curiosity was awakened by a spring, marked on the OS map, with an old stone trough and an artificial stone-lined stream. It is on the side of the steep cliff, not in a field, so it seems unlikely to me to have been constructed for animal use.

A little further on, we stumbled across Highcliffe Lodges, five or so timber holiday huts in a tranquil spot. Access to them is over a wide bridge over a beck. I had stumble down through the stingers to have a look at it, and was very surprised by what I found.

It's a very old, very tall, rough stone bridge (about 10ft) with a single small square opening for the water to go through.

In fact, it is a bridge with other bridges and parapets built on top of it, including a very modern one (to access the lodges) which is the narrowest.

This cannot be a beck that floods much otherwise the pressure of the water back-up in the gully would have washed the bridge away by now.

I've only stumbled across one similar square stone bridge before, and that is the Melderstone Packhorse Bridge near Coundon. It was built around 1800 as part of a raised causeway so that coal could be removed from Westerton Old Pit. I described it, too, as "a remarkably large structure" (The Northern Echo, 28/11/2007).

In fact, I would guess that Highcliffe bridge is even larger than Melderstone. It is certainly wider as there is probably enough room for two carriages to cross it simultaneously. Because of its width, I don't think it would be a packhorse bridge: it's too wide.

There is, though, leading off the Teesdale Way footpath down to the Tees what appears to me to be an ancient green lane. Centuries of feet and wheels have carved it out of the countryside leaving moss-covered mounds on either side.

But I have never heard any mention of an ancient river crossing at Highcliffe. And such is the steepness of the cliffs, it is a strange place for a crossing, particularly as a mile or so downriver you have the Winston crossing and a couple of miles or so upriver you have the Whorlton crossing. You'd go to either one of those rather than try and climb Highcliffe's high cliffs.

A quick google and I arrive at the Highcliffe Waters holiday lodge website - www.countryholiday.co.uk – and it says: "Access to the lodges takes you over an original Roman bridge and nearby is an ancient battle site."

A longer google, and I can find nothing to support this as yet.

Winston Bridge was built in 1762-3 by Sir Thomas Robinson. In its day it was Europe's largest single span bridge. It was built on the site of a Mediaeval bridge which may have been on the site of a Roman crossing. Aerial photography suggests that at Winston Gates, on the Yorkshire bank of the river, there was a Roman fortlet (AD43-410) which may have guarded the crossing. And there are believed to be re-used Roman stones in St Andrew's Church in Winston.

But no mention of a Roman bridge at Highcliffe.

Which leaves me with a curiously large and fascinatingly old stone bridge in the middle of nowhere that does not appear to have a story attached to it.