Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge
Bridge St
Windsor, VT
The longest wooden covered bridge in the United States, carrying traffic across the Connecticut River from Windsor, Vermont, to Cornish, New Hampshire, since 1866.
Spanning some 449 feet across the Connecticut River, the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge is the longest wooden covered bridge in the United States and one of the longest anywhere. Built in 1866, it links the town of Windsor on the Vermont bank with Cornish on the New Hampshire side, and it still carries everyday traffic across the river.
Covered bridges were roofed not for beauty but for survival: the cover protected the wooden trusses from rain and snow so the structure would last for generations rather than rot in a decade. This one has stood, rebuilt and restored, for more than a century and a half.
What Guests Love
- Driving or walking through the longest covered bridge in the country
- Crossing from Vermont into New Hampshire mid-river
- The classic wooden lattice trusswork overhead
- The pastoral river-valley setting with Mount Ascutney nearby
Worth Knowing
- The bridge still carries vehicle traffic and is one lane, so yield to oncoming cars
- There is a sidewalk and pull-offs for walking through and photographing it
- The Vermont end sits in Windsor, close to the American Precision Museum and the Old Constitution House
- It is open year-round, weather permitting, as a working crossing
Details
Windsor, VT
Learn about Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge
Why bridges were covered
A wooden bridge left exposed to New England weather might last only ten or twenty years before its timbers rotted. By roofing and siding the structure, builders sheltered the crucial load-bearing trusses, and a covered bridge could stand for a century or more, which is why so many survive across Vermont and New Hampshire.
The Cornish-Windsor bridge uses a Town lattice truss, a design of crisscrossed planks pinned together that could be built from short, common lumber by ordinary carpenters. Look up as you pass through and the web of diagonal timbers is plainly visible overhead.
A bridge between two states
The bridge is unusual in that it carries you from one state to another mid-span. New Hampshire's boundary actually runs to the Vermont side of the Connecticut River, a quirk of colonial history, so the state line sits near the Windsor bank rather than in the middle of the water.
The current bridge is the fourth on the site, its predecessors lost to floods and ice, and it was extensively restored in the 1980s. It remains a public highway crossing, not a museum piece, quietly doing the job it was built for.
Windsor, the birthplace of Vermont
The Vermont end of the bridge sits in Windsor, where in 1777 delegates met in a tavern to write the constitution of the independent Republic of Vermont, which banned adult slavery and granted broad voting rights years before the United States Constitution. That tavern survives as the Old Constitution House.
Windsor was also a cradle of American manufacturing, where the precision machine tools that made interchangeable parts possible were developed, a story told at the American Precision Museum in the town's old armory.
Season by season
Autumn is the postcard season, when the covered bridge and the river valley frame a blaze of foliage and photographers line the banks. It is the busiest and most beautiful time to visit.
Summer brings green river-valley days and easy walking through the span, while winter dresses the bridge and the surrounding fields in snow. As a working crossing it stays open through the year, weather allowing.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Windsor
Old Constitution House
About 1 mile, a 4 minute drive
The Windsor tavern where Vermont's 1777 constitution was adopted, now a state historic site.
American Precision Museum
About 1 mile, a 4 minute drive
In Windsor's 1846 armory, the story of the machine tools that launched interchangeable-parts manufacturing.
Mount Ascutney
About 6 miles, a 12 minute drive
An isolated monadnock with a summit auto road and hiking trails above the Connecticut River valley.