Arsonists burn the bridge that made Madison County

A covered wooden bridge featured in the film The Bridges of Madison County has been severely damaged in a suspected arson attack. Only the charred shell of the bridge remains.

Authorities in Iowa were called by a passer-by who saw Cedar Bridge, below, on fire. "There is no electricity to the bridge, there is no furnace," said Madison County Sheriff Paul Welch. "There is nothing there that would have initiated any fire on its own."

The 76ft-long bridge, spanning a stream near Winterset in Iowa, was built in 1883, and was the last of several such bridges in the county, all registered as historic structures, which was open to public traffic.

Cedar Bridge was the setting for Robert Waller's bestselling novel The Bridges of Madison County, published in 1992. The bridge, with its canopy to protect it from the weather, was featured on the cover of the novel, a love saga featuring a farm wife and an itinerant photographer, which sold more than 12 million copies in more than two dozen languages. It was made into a film in 1995 starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.