British Iron Bridges

London and West Environs

SYON PARK BRIDGE 1790 James Wyatt Isleworth, London HEW 2376 TQ 172 768 N51o 28' 37.0" W0o 19' 7.8"

This is a very interesting, but simple wrought iron bridge which once carried a carriage drive across an ornamental lake in the Duke of Northumberland's estate just outside London across the Thames from Kew Gardens. Three spans of 30'9" in the middle flanked by spans of 25'6" carry a slightly arched deck between stone abutments. It was designed by the architect James Wyatt. It is made up of wrought iron bar with the arched edge girders being 12 inches deep. Its spare Palladian design with flared parapets at either end is shared by the pair of bridges Wyatt designed for Croome Hall (1795) in Worcestershire.

The provenance of these bridges is even more fascinating. Catherine the Great of Russia recruited John Busch (c1730-95) from London where he was the leading garden supplier. He worked with her Russian landscaper Trifon Ilyin to create an English garden at Tsarskoe Selo Palace near St. Petersburg . They created ten wrought iron bridges for her gardens in the 1780's. When Busch turned his Russian position over to his son and returned to England in 1789, he settled on the Syon Park estate of the Duke of Northumberland and no doubt influenced James Wyatt's design of these bridges and others on the Duke's estates in the North of England. (See Hulne Park).

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Category: London and West Environs

STRATFIELD SAYE 1801 Thomas Wilson River Loddon Hampshire HEW 1344 SU706 624 N51o 20' 44" W1o 0' 3.8"

This bridge is on a private estate formerly owned by George Pitt, Lord Rivers, who would have commissioned the bridge. A plaque at the crown of the arch gives the date of 1801. The estate was bought by the Duke of Wellington after the 1815 Battle of Waterloo being a gift from his grateful nation and it is still the private home of his descendants.

The bridge carries an estate road over the River Loddon. It was designed by Thomas Wilson (ca. 1750-ca. 1820) who was most likely introduced to Pitt by Rowland Burdon a Member of Parliament from County Durham where Pitt's family owned vast coalfields. Burdon had commissioned Thomas Wilson to build the Sunderland Bridge across the River Wear (Act 1792). The iron work was cast by the Walkers' Foundry at Rotherham for both bridges.

This is a particularly beautiful bridge: deceptively simple looking but with sensuous curves. The airy iron work spanning the river is anchored by handsome stolid stone abutments and crowned with a simple parapet whose insistent vertical bars serve to both unite the masonry and the iron while delineating the curves and contrasting with the circles in the spandrels. They are subtly repeated but with different spacing in the arched voussoirs.

Wilson patented his technique of inserting a rectangular cast-iron frame the full width of the bridge to give lateral stability. In addition, there are light cross-strays connecting the four ribs. The decking was originally planking. The span between abutments is 40 feet and the width between parapets is 13 ½ feet. Andrew Smith was the consulting engineer when the bridge was restored in the 1990's.

Thomas Wilson is a legend among devotees of early iron bridges. His Sunderland Bridge (Act 1792) was the second major iron bridge built after the first Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale. Wilson built a number of significant bridges during his lifetime of which only three of which are known to remain today: this one (1801-1802); a bridge at Spanish Town, Jamaica (1800-1801); and the Tickford Bridge at Newport Pagnell (1809-10).

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Category: London and West Environs

ST KATHERINE DOCKS LONDON 1828-29 HEW 58 TQ 349 805 N52o 47' 30.2" W2o 1' 45.3

Thomas Telford created this harbor with locks beside the Tower of London to create a secure wharf and warehouses for high value imported cargo. It involved demolishing an entire ancient neighborhood of 1200 people and the medieval houses around the very old St. Katherine's church.

One John Lloyd of Westminster contributed 446 pounds sterling to build a wrought iron foot bridge whose two halves ingeniously retract on rails into the masonry abutments driven by gears above ground and cogs on the bridge in order to allow ships to pass between the Basin and the Eastern Dock. There is a drawing signed by Thomas Rhodes who was Telford's engineer on site 1828-9. Today, after Telford's basin was again redeveloped in 1993 into a yacht basin encompassing condos and businesses in the old warehouses, this small retracting iron footbridge is almost the only tangible reminder of his project.

To get there, take the Underground to Tower Hill Station, go down the steps toward the river and turn left following signs to Tower Bridge through underpass and then follow signs to St. Katherine Docks.

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Category: London and West Environs

PRIMROSE HILL BRIDGE Regent's Canal, London N51o 32’ 7.8” W0o 9’ 36.3”

It is hard to get any information on the builder and the date for this Victorian cast iron bridge.

It is a few hundred yards from Macclesfield Bridge and the directions to it would be the same: Take the Underground to St. John's Wood Station and on coming out, take a left onto Acacia Avenue (away from Finchely/Wellington Road). It is a fairly long walk through a beautiful neighborhood of Georgian houses to Avenue Road where you take a right. You will find the canal and the bridge in a few blocks.

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Category: London and West Environs

NEWPORT PAGNELLS BR AKA TICKFORD BRIDGE 1810 Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire HEW52 SP877 438 N52o 5' 9" W0o 43' 11"

This cast iron bridge with its semi-elliptical arch crosses the River Lovat with a span of 58 feet. It was designed by Thomas Wilson and Henry Provis and cast at the Walker Foundry in Rotherham. The six ribs each have eleven segments connected with mortise and tendon joints keyed together. The 25’ roadbed is of iron plates which were reinforced with concrete in 1976 because this bridge carries a full load of traffic . The spandrels have the diminishing open rings of that era with an additional arch edge design which is a Wilson trademark and in this case uses open rings of equal size.

This bridge is considered Wilson's masterpiece, although I prefer the grace of his bridge at Stratfield Saye. He built a number of beautiful but ambitious bridges including The Sunderland Bridge over the Tyne several of which collapsed, probably due to the abutments not being anchored is suitable soils to be able to handle the great trust of the shallow arches he favored. In this case, Henry Provis' limestone abutments go down to bedrock. There are only three known Wilson bridges surviving today: this one, the one at Stratfield Saye on the Duke of Wellington's estate in Hampshire and one in Spanish Town, Jamaica. The bridge is easily found as it is the pride of the community and is well signed in the city center.

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Category: London and West Environs

MARLOW SUSPENSION BRIDGE 1829>1832 River Thames Buckinghamshire/Berkshire N51o 34' 5.7" W0o 46' 26.3" HEW661 SU851 861.

This had been the site of several previous bridges, but the Marlow Bridge Act of 1829 had in mind a permanent, imposing bridge and the Committee chose a suspension bridge. William Tierney Clark took over from his predecessor and his design is the bridge seen today with updated reinforcing in the 1960's. The original contractor was T. Clifford and Thomas Corby plus William Bond, all of Marlow. Clark had originally worked at the Coalbrookdale Ironworks but the ironwork here was provided by William Hazeldine of Shrewsbury.

This bridge with its golden masonry triumphal arches has a central span of 227 feet with two side spans of 71 and 70 feet apiece. It has the distinction of being the only vehicular suspension bridge over the Thames outside of London.

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Category: London and West Environs

MACCLESFIELD BRIDGE 1815 Regent’s Canal, London HEW 2246 TQ275 833 N51o 32' 4.8" W0o 9' 47.0"

This is an early use of cast iron columns to support the springing of the arches of a conventional brick bridge. It was designed by James Morgan who was assistant to John Nash and engineer to the Regent's Canal Company of which Lord Macclesfield was Chairman. This bold bridge which carries Avenue Road over the canal into Regent's Park has three arches supported by iron Doric columns cast at the Coalbrookdale Company iron works. When a barge carrying gun powder blew up under the bridge in 1874, the bridge and parts of the immediate neighborhood were demolished. The iron columns survived and were used in the replacement 1876 bridge with only a few dents and scars testifying to their adventure. Similar cast iron Doric columns support the Nene railroad bridge arches at Petersborough.

To find it, take the Underground to St. John's Wood Station and on coming out, take a left onto Acacia Avenue (away from Finchely/Wellington Road). It is a fairly long walk through a beautiful neighborhood of Georgian houses to Avenue Road where you take a right. You will find the canal and the bridge in a few blocks.

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Category: London and West Environs

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