 Preceding the rebuild, the bridge was partly of stone and partly of wood, which itself replaced a stone bridge of seven arches, destroyed by a flood in 1795, and some remains of which form part of the later structure.Toll was taken on this bridge under the authority of an act of parliament obtained in the 29th of George II., which granted that privilege for a term of 98 years, from the first day of August, 1763, at the expiration of which the bridge was to be tollfree.There is no record of there having been a bridge over the River Wye at Hay, till past the middle of the 18th century.