Having briefly explored their origins, their significance, their variety and the challenges of finding these early iron bridges as well as some brief thoughts on how to assure that they are still proudly spanning or carrying their particular waterway two centuries from now, one hopes to have aroused both in those whose antecedents in the profession built them and in those whose three times great grandfathers were the first to use them an irresistible desire to visit them.
I am turning you loose now - you are on your own. Having had you firmly grasped by the lapels for some time, with only an occasional shake to refocus your straying attention, I am satisfied that you are fairly well briefed on a number of various subjects touching on bridges. If one or more aspects of this story have piqued your further curiosity, I have compiled a bibliography with just that in mind. Please give my regards to your Three-times-Great Grandfather and thank him for his help in keeping us grounded within the time frame of his lifetime while we circled the birth of the Industrial Revolution to view it from different angles.
Now comes the really fun part, even if you have already taken my up-front advice and jumped the gun on tracking down iron bridges. You will soon discover that pursuing old bridges as a pastime is addictive. Fortunately, it is quite adaptable to being either a spur-of-the-moment skirmish or a full campaign of discovery. In no time, you will soon be able to date them from 100 yards away without reference to the Appendix. You will begin to recognize their children and grandchildren in more modern bridges all around us.
Our bridges will become familiar landmarks and beloved old friends who still modestly and faithfully fulfill their original purpose some 230 years later with an aura of patriarchal serenity. I wish you great joy of them.