The Welney Website

Suspension Bridge

 

Within the parish of Welney there is a hamlet of some 15-20 dwellings once known as Washington situated on the eastern side of the New Bedford River (also known as the Hundred Foot River or Drain) at a point where the Littleport and Ely to Wisbech Road (now the A1101) crosses the river.

Some records say there had been a wooden bridge here from around 1650, but no bridge is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1824 and a ferry service had been in use here for many years. Then in 1826 the local rector, the Revd. William Gale Townley, financed a new bridge at a cost of around £3,000. It was a chain suspension bridge, designed by Captain Sir Samuel Brown, RN, a naval officer and engineer. The area has been known as 'Suspension Bridge' ever since.

(Six years earlier Brown had built the famous "Union" suspension bridge, at Berwick-upon-Tweed and in 1823 he designed the world's first seaside pleasure pier, the Chain Pier at Brighton. Welney must have been lucky to have secured his services.)

There used to be at least three pubs here - The Crown Inn (now Crown House) which closed in 1968, The Carpenters Arms (now Carpenters) closed c1940, and The Cock (?). There was also a Primitive Methodist chapel (now The Old Chapel) built in 1872 (?)  and a Church of England free school known as the "Mission School" (now Tall Pines) built in 1874 by Marshall's Charity for 80 pupils. It was also licenced for divine service, held on Sundays. It closed in 1927. The building was badly damaged by fire in April 2006.

Click a photo or the map above for a larger image, or here for the 1889 map.

The suspension bridge was of wrought iron with a timber deck. It was 191 feet  (58.5 metres) long; the carriageway was 7ft 6ins wide, with a 3ft 4 ins footpath each side. It was opened to the public on 16th August 1826 and was described as  a "handsome" bridge.

Tolls were charged to use it. The photo on the right shows what may have been a charges board on the left tower, and perhaps the toll house to the left of that. The last toll keepers are said to have been Roger Lavender and Larry Scott.

It was never strong enough for traction engines to use it and by the 1920's it had a three-ton weight limit.  According to Barber's Almanack, the Littleport Parish Council in May 1925  discussed its "dangerous state".

 

Subsequently, in 1926, it was replaced by a three-span bridge with a central reinforced concrete bowstring arch and short reinforced concrete approach spans.

From the photograph on the left it seems the new bridge is to the south of the original bridge.

 

 

 

 

In the 1990s, Norfolk County Council  engineers examined the arched bridge and assessed it to have a weight limit of only 7.5 tonnes - but it was being used daily by trucks of up to 38 tonnes! Later a more detailed investigation was undertaken by the chartered engineers, Maunsell & Partners who concluded that it could not be strengthened sufficiently to meet the required standard. The County Council therefore sought Government funding for a new bridge and in 1992 commissioned Maunsell to carry out feasibility studies. Various designs and alignments were considered.

 

The final selection was a three-span bridge with reinforced concrete piled foundations, steel main beams and a reinforced concrete deck, with an overall length of 50.83 metres and 11.2 m overall width, to be built just to the south of the 1926 bridge.

The tender for the construction was won by May Gurney Construction Ltd. and work started in November 1995. It was completed on schedule and the new "Suspension Bridge" was opened on 23 September 1996 by Mr R Phelan, CEng MIEE, Chairman of Norfolk County Council.

The scheme cost £1.4M, grant aided by the Department of Transport.

The fact that the bridges of 1926 and 1996 were built to the south of the ones they replaced means that the eastern end of the original suspension bridge might have been in line with what is now the garden to the north of Crown House. The aerial views seem to confirm that.

 

Something you would not have guessed about the designer of the original Welney Suspension Bridge, Captain Sir Samuel Brown, RN.

Further details of the design and construction of the 1996 bridge can be seen found in the Norfolk County Council leaflet.

 

Text © Welney Webmaster, December 2005; Black & white photos © Welney Archives; Aerial photos © Dick Fiske, June 2005. No copying or reproduction without permission. Contact webmaster for further details.