I had grown up going to Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. But what of the original Natural Bridge in western Virginia? It was clearly worthy of a visit and a sketch

Only this bridge is much more famous, it was once owned by Thomas Jefferson, surveyed by a young George Washington (apparently), and name-checked in Melville’s masterpiece Moby Dick. (“But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia’s Natural Bridge…”)

The bridge was formed in a limestone gorge, carved out by Cedar Creek about 470 million years ago. The arch is 215 feet high, higher that the Statue of Liberty.

When Jefferson purchased the land in 1774 he called the landforms, “the most sublime of Nature’s works”.