LYNDEBOROUGH – At Town Meeting on Saturday, Lyndeborough voters will be asked to appropriate $6,000 for an architectural study of the two stone arch bridges beside Old Temple Road.

The arches were constructed in 1873 and by-passed by new bridges in 2005.

Members of the Heritage Commission, charged with the preservation of the town’s cultural past, has listed their reasons for the request: Very little of the town’s history is still visible. All signs of the glass factory, the Clark pottery, the Pinnacle House, and small mills are gone.

The Master Plan, adopted by the town, lists historic preservation as a means of preserving the town’s rural character.

They are of dry stone construction, that is without mortar, a style no longer used. There are few left in the state.

The two bridges were built in 1873 by Alonzo Buttrick in connection with a dam that supplied power to a furniture factory.

The town accepted the bridges, along with the road they carried, in 1893.

When the new bridge was opened, a picnic area was proposed for the area, but was never constructed. The Heritage Commission plans to do that now, as well as install a historic marker at the site.

The Board of Selectmen unanimously support the article, but half of the Budget Committee, four members, do not.

Saturday’s town meeting is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., in Citizens’ Hall.

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