Behold 'Bridgette:' guardian of the pilings

'Bridgette' stands proudly atop the middle planking of what's left of the New Bridge Road Bridge on Friday. (Harrison Thorp photo)

Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story we incorrectly reported what a manikin on the New Bridge Road Bridge was holding. She is holding a pink flamingo and a guitar. We regret the confusion.  

IN THE NORTHEAST POND CHANNEL BETWEEN MILTON AND LEBANON - As if she were sitting in a parapet above a rampart overlooking her watery domain, a woman in red has installed herself on what’s left of the New Bridge Road Bridge.

“Bridgette,” as she has been dubbed, is a life-size manikin dressed in a red shirt holding in her arms a pink flamingo and a guitar.

A Lebanon Voice reader who lives on New Bridge Road alerted the newspaper to the woman’s appearance by email early this afternoon.

“Just call her "Bridgette" as she protects the bridge pilings from trespassers,” he wrote.

Just last night officials from Lebanon and Milton decided to move ahead with demolition work that would remove the planking and crossbeams and cut the pilings from just above the lake bottom to ensure no teens would be able to jump from the pilings in the vicinity of passing boats as they have continually done.in the past.

Susan Everett of Everetts Cove Marina said the manikin wasn't there yesterday, so someone must have done it overnight.

No one has come forward and claimed responsibility for the lady in red’s placement on the bridge substructure’s middle planking. The woman is facing down the channel toward Milton Pond.

Reached at his home and told about the woman in red, Milton Selectman Bob Bridges was nonplussed.

“Well, that will go down in the history books,” he said.