Gairloch Bridge
This 35ft-span bridge was built in about 1840 for a private estate road. There are four cast iron arch ribs, with hooped spandrels connecting the top and bottom booms, and intricate cast iron parapets. CEHE
The narrow segmental arch stone footbridge over a mountain stream at Gairloch is not the packhorse bridge it appears to be. Until the 1970s the bridge was about 15ft wide and carried the A832 but, when the new road bridge was built, the old structure was rebuilt in its current narrow form. The road bridge consists of precast concrete I-beams spanning about 60ft.
Gairloch Bridge
Galashiels Bridge was the first of two early suspension bridges erected over the River Tweed (the second was at Dryburgh [qv]). Built in 1816 by mill-owner Richard Lees, it was a combination structure with a very flat profile wire cable catenary complemented by ten overlapping stays radiating out from the top of each mast. The bridge, which spanned 111ft with a level deck 3ft wide, was destroyed by floods in 1835. BE, BoB, BPJ, CEHSL, F, Harper, Miller
The Grade I packhorse bridge over the River Avill at Dunster may date back to the fifteenth century and is now in the care of English Heritage. It has two low segmental stone arches and the intermediate pier has a small cutwater at its upstream end. The footway, which is less than 4ft wide, now takes the Macmillan Way West. ABSE, BG, BiB, BoB, PBE
Telford built this bridge to carry the existing Smethwick to Sandwell road over the cutting dug to take his improved line for the Birmingham Canal. Completed in 1829, the Grade I bridge has six cast iron segmental arch ribs, each of seven sections, that span 150ft between brick abutments built high up on the cutting sides. The spandrels are filled with open X-pattern bracing. The bridge, which has been bypassed by a road passing over a tunnel built to enclose the canal, now carries a minor road only. ABTB, BoB, CEHWW, IB, ICE, TT
Galton Bridge
When the Caban Coch reservoir is full, the masonry arch road bridge across it looks almost like a bridge standing on piers founded on the reservoir bed (although the valley’s geography makes that seem unlikely). However, in dry periods when the water level drops, it can be seen that the bridge actually stands on a lower-level dam that divides the main reservoir into two parts, thus allowing the upper Garreg Ddu reservoir to maintain the water supply to Birmingham. Completed in 1904, the bridge has seven main and five smaller spans. CEHW
There have been several different bridges on this site providing a public right of way over the River Cam in the middle of the college ‘Backs’. The first crossing, a timber bridge built at the instigation of Henry VI, founder of King’s College, was probably built in the late fifteenth century. Another, built in 1769 by James Essex, was similar to the timber bridge he had built in 1750 at Queens’ College (Mathematical Bridge [qv]), and was the first to be called a mathematical bridge. The penultimate bridge, opened in 1837, was a four-centred cast iron arch of 60ft span. However, settlement caused a fracture in the cast iron and in 1960 the present post-tensioned reinforced concrete bridge was completed. This has a slim parabolic arched 14ft-wide deck, roughly triangular in cross section, spanning 80ft between masonry clad abutments, the faces of which slope back to meet the bridge’s curved soffit at right angles. The bridge now carries the Wimpole Way. ABMEE, BoB, CB, CEHE, CEHEA, MBB, NTBB, PCF
Garret Hostel Bridge
The Inverness & Perth Junction Railway built this viaduct in 1863 to carry its original single-line track across the River Garry on three semicircular stone arches. The ends of the intermediate piers are embellished with half-round columns finishing in battlemented refuges. The viaduct’s central 80ft span also passes above an earlier segmental-arched road bridge that crosses the river at the same point. When the line was doubled in 1897 a single-span Warren girder bridge was erected on the upstream side. CEHSL, SG
General Wade built the Grade A Garvamore Bridge over the River Spey in 1731 to carry his military road across the bleak countryside between Laggan and Fort Augustus. It has two widely separated segmental arch spans of 27ft and 30ft and a massive lateral buttress at each abutment. BPJ, HB
Garvamore Bridge
Built in 1886 to link Oxford’s gasworks to the rail network and to carry its gas mains over the Thames, this bridge is 22ft wide and has two 65ft spans. These consist of wrought iron lattice girders 8ft deep spanning from brick abutments to ornate cast iron columns in mid-river. The bridge is now a public footbridge and the Thames Path passes its southern end. BoT, TBDS, TC
Gas, Light & Coke Footbridge
Built in 1987 for the Gateshead Garden Festival to carry a 4m-wide walkway over the River Team and a local road, this bridge has two 28m-long spans between concrete abutments, the intermediate pier being a concrete portal frame. The structure of ekki hardwood is a panelled truss 2.1m deep consisting of alternately facing diagonals separated by vertical members, with the deck supported by cross beams resting on the bottom booms. At the time of its completion the bridge was considered to be the largest timber truss bridge in Europe.
Gasworks Road Bridge
See Basildon Railway Bridge, Lower Basildon, West Berkshire
This early suspension bridge, completed in 1826, was designed by J. S. Brown of Redpath & Brown and is the oldest example of work completed by the company that became Redpath Brown. The distance between its 38ft-high tapered masonry piers is 296ft, and this is spanned by twin chains above each side of the 4ft-wide timber deck. These chains are each made up of 10ft-long iron bars connected by 7in links with vertical hangers at each connection point. In 1992 the bridge was refurbished and strengthened by the addition of new chains and the replacement in steel of the suspended structure. The bridge now carries the Southern Upland Way. BPJ, CEHSL, HBEKB, NTBB, Harper
The world’s largest passenger footbridge, opened in 2005, spans an airport taxiway and carries two separate passenger walkways linking eleven new pier-served aircraft stands to the airport’s North Terminal. The bridge’s 32m clearance above the ground allows Boeing 747 jumbo jets to pass safely beneath. It is 197m long with a main span of 128m between piers, which are A-shaped in cross section through the bridge and Y-shaped in elevation. F, NCE
Gatwick Airport Pier 6
This bridge, built for the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825, was the world’s first iron railway bridge (although the first iron tramway bridge, Pont y Cafnau [qv], was built in 1793). Designed by George Stephenson, the four-span structure had lenticular truss edge members, each formed by wrought iron booms separated, in the web, by five vertical cast iron posts that continued through to support the deck. The intermediate piers, 12ft apart, were diagonally-braced cast iron trestles and the deck was about 9ft wide. The bridge was replaced by a masonry arch in 1901 and the original structure is now in the National Railway Museum in York. BA, BHRB, BOTB, BRB, BRBV, CEHN, EIBT, IB
This viaduct, designed by George Stephenson and built in 1840 for the Manchester & Leeds Railway, consists of eighteen stone arches and a 102ft-span iron bowstring girder bridge built on a skew between turreted abutments. Decorative cast iron arcaded panels, which at first sight make the bridge look like a compound structure of arch and Vierendeel girder, top the arch line. In 1906 the structure was strengthened by the insertion of 10ft-deep steel plate girders beneath the deck. BHRB, BOTB, CEHN, RHB
Gauxholme Viaduct
The ancient bridge crossing the River Ise at Geddington has three pointed and one semicircular stone arches, all spanning 12ft. Although the latter has a keystone carved with the date 1784, the pointed arches probably date back to the fifteenth century, which would be in keeping with the massive size of the triangular cutwaters and refuges that dwarf the arches. The village was bypassed in 1925. ABMEE, BB, DB, SC
Geddington Bridge
The first structure on this site was the Walkham Viaduct, built by Brunel in 1859 for the South Devon & Tavistock Railway. The seventeen-span timber viaduct, 1,100ft long and 132ft high – the largest on the line – originally had horizontal tie beams connecting the base of the fans at the top of the masonry columns, although these were later changed to wrought iron ties. In 1910 the fan structure was replaced by a steel lattice truss. The viaduct was demolished in 1965 but was replaced in 2012 by a five-span bridge carrying the Drake’s Trail cycle route at a gradient of 1 in 20 across the valley. The new bridge is a steel lattice truss with arched bottom booms and a central 60m main span and two smaller spans on each side. The trusses support a 3.5m-wide concrete deck and stand on concrete piers. These are waisted in cross section and have special granite-effect finishes. There are cantilevered viewing points on both sides of the bridge on each pier line. BTBV, NCE
This, Britain’s first modern cable stay bridge, was designed by Mott, Hay & Anderson and opened in 1964. Its 500ft central span is supported by forty-eight three-inch-diameter locked coil galvanised wire ropes that pass over the 165ft-high hollow concrete towers to be anchored at the pier supports on the approach viaducts. The cellular steel deck is remarkably thin, being only 4½ft deep along the bridge centreline, giving the bridge a span:depth ratio of 110. BE, BwS, MBB
George Street Bridge
This fine 16ft-wide stone bridge over the River Esk has two segmental arches separated by a small rocky islet on which there is a common central abutment with large pedestrian refuges above each face. One arch spans 70ft and the other 45ft. The Grade A bridge was built in about 1800. BB, CEHSL, NTBB
Gilnockie Bridge
Built by John Wing in 1782, this 30ft-wide bridge has three semi-elliptical stone arches of 21ft, 29ft and 21ft span. The hump-back nature of the bridge when it was first built is evident from the string course above the arches, but the gradients have since been reduced requiring the ends of the parapets to be built up with extra courses of stonework. ABMEE, BBeds, CEHE
This stone road bridge over the River Ogmore, now overshadowed by the M4 motorway, was built in 1829 to carry a horse-drawn mineral tramway. It is 12ft wide and has three semicircular arches, the largest spanning 31ft, with the intermediate piers protected by stepped cutwaters. The bridge now carries the Bridgend Circular Walk. BW, CEHW, CEHWW
Glanrhyd (Tyn y Garn) Bridge
The southern end of the private bridge crossing the River Usk to the Glanusk Estate is guarded by a gatehouse over the road with stair tower attached, both of which are castellated. The gatehouse has a semi-elliptical arch over the single-carriageway roadway, above which is an upper room. The bridge itself is 20ft wide and has three main segmental stone arches, each of 44ft span, and a small semicircular arch next to the gatehouse. The two main intermediate piers have pointed cutwaters with pilasters above. The bridge and gatehouse were built in 1836 by Sir Joseph Bailey, the bridge replacing an earlier chain suspension bridge which was then re-erected as Irfon Bridge (qv) at Builth and given to the town.
Glanusk Bridge
A bridge (probably of timber) over the River Wye at Glasbury was recorded in 1665 and later timber structures were washed away in 1738 and in the mid-1770s. William Edwards, builder of Pontypridd Bridge (qv), built a stone arched bridge in 1777, but in 1795 this also succumbed to floods and was followed by more timber bridges. The present bridge was built in 1923 and consists of a six-span reinforced concrete beam and deck structure, the edge beams having slightly arched soffits. It was widened in 1964 and again in 1989. The Wye Valley Walk passes the west end of the bridge. ABWWE, BBrec, BRW
Glasbury Bridge
William Mylne built the first bridge over the River Clyde in the centre of Glasgow, Jamaica Street Bridge, in 1772. It had seven segmental stone arches and, in 1821, Telford widened it by adding flat segmental iron arches spanning between pier extensions built above the cutwaters. In 1833 Telford began work on a replacement structure known as Broomielaw Bridge, his last major bridge and one of his most beautiful, although he had died before it was completed at the end of 1835. This was a record-breaking 60ft wide and had a central span of 59ft, flanked on each side by three more spans each 52ft long, and the parapet itself formed the arc of a huge circle with a vertical radius of about 750ft. This bridge had to be demolished when the Clyde was deepened and the present structure, now called Glasgow Bridge, dates from 1899. Designed as a replica of Telford’s bridge, it consists of seven stone arches supporting an 80ft-wide road deck – one of the widest in the country – and part of the granite facing comes from the earlier bridge. ABTB, BoB, BPJ, CEHSL, NTBB, TT
Glasgow Bridge
As part of Coventry’s Millennium Place regeneration scheme, completed in 2003, the Glass Bridge provides a 130m-long walkway for pedestrians. This rises up in a helical ramp 15m in diameter to pass over the old city wall and then crosses above a public garden. Although the bridge is named after the coloured glass fins which envelop the parapet railings, the load-bearing part of the structure is a 762mm-diameter steel tube, supported by irregularly-placed tubular steel columns, to which are welded the deck brackets. The bridge was designed by engineers Whitbybird and architects MacCormac Jamieson Pritchard.
Glass Bridge
See Paddock Viaduct, Huddersfield, Kirklees
This reinforced concrete bridge was built in 1932 to cross a deep gulley near the town centre. It has a main segmental arch that spans 185ft and supports the 40ft-wide deck on slim spandrel columns above its two ribs. The arch is approached from each end by a post and beam structure with three 23ft spans, and the total bridge length is 530ft.
Telford’s Caledonian Canal was built between 1803 and 1822, mainly to enable sailing warships to pass speedily between Scotland’s west and east coasts avoiding the stormy voyage round Cape Wrath. This aqueduct, which carries the canal over the Glen Loy stream, was completed in 1806. It has three segmentally arched tunnel-like spans – one 25ft wide capable of taking the river in spate, and two 10ft wide for the access roads on the river banks. HB
This bridge is a simple wooden box with pulley wheels on each side that run on steel cables stretched across the Linne Dhubh river. HB
Glenfinnan Viaduct, designed by Simpson and Wilson and built by ‘Concrete Bob’ McAlpine in 1901, is one of the most spectacular viaducts in the country. It is noticeable for the grandeur of its situation as it curves round at the head of Loch Shiel overlooking the monument – a round tower with a statue of a kilted Highlander on top – marking the site where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745. It also represents one of the earliest uses of mass concrete for large-scale bridge construction. The Grade A viaduct was built to carry the West Highland Extension Railway’s line from Fort William to Mallaig. Its twenty-one semicircular arches, each of 50ft span, carry its single track 90ft above the Glen Finnan stream. BA, BHRB, BiB, BPJ, BRB, BRBV, CEHSH, DoB, HB, NTBB, RHB
Glenfinnan Viaduct
This bridge was built in 1956 to carry the diversion of an existing road over part of the Quoich Reservoir. The steel plate girder structure has two anchor arms of 165ft span and a central cantilever and suspended section of 220ft span. MBB
An earlier bridge over the River Wey on this site was replaced in 1782 by the present brick structure with five segmental arch spans, the largest of which is about 15ft long. The two semicircular pedestrian refuges on either side of the central span on each face are supported on unusual trumpet-shaped stone corbelling. The bridge is decorated with a blank oculus above the first pier from each end and with an uncarved stone tablet on the parapet above the central span. The arch barrels on the west side were extended in concrete with brick facings in 1930 to widen the bridge to 36ft. ABSE, ABTB, BB, BME, CEHS
Godalming Bridge
First built in 1827 but completely rebuilt to James Gallier’s original design in 1869 and again in 1960, this 60ft-span attractive timber footbridge crosses a branch of the River Ouse. There are two structural ribs, each consisting of a top and bottom boom of different radii meeting at a common tangent point in the centre span and with the spandrel space between them being filled with diagonal cross-bracing. The 5ft-wide deck is supported between the top booms, which also carry the attractive timber railing. This has a ‘Chinese’ pattern of cross bracing to the panels based on a design by Thomas Chippendale. The bridge is supported at each end by brick abutments, the wing walls curving out to end in drum piers. The Ouse Valley Way now crosses the bridge. BiB, CEHE, CEHEA, NTBB, TimB
Godmanchester Chinese Bridge
There are two bridges between the famous Trout Inn and the site of the Godstow Nunnery. The older one, which could date from the fourteenth century, has one pointed stone arch of about 12ft span and a semicircular stone arch, presumably rebuilt later, spanning about 13ft. Because of the poor clearances through this ancient bridge, a new navigation channel was cut in about 1780 and this was provided with a new bridge of two semi-elliptical spans. These have brick barrels and are faced with stone. The Thames Path passes the south end of the bridge.
Less than quarter of a mile to the east another bridge, sometimes called Airmen’s Bridge, crosses a further river channel. This was built in 1876 and has three segmental stone arches with spans of 24ft, 28ft and 24ft. ABSE, BME, BoT, MBO, OB, TB, TBDS, TC
Designed by Anthony Hunt Associates to provide both slip road access off the A8 and a visual gateway to the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland, this bridge was opened in 2006. It consists of a tubular steel parabolic arch spanning 60m diagonally across the line of the bridge deck, which is supported from the arch by an asymmetric arrangement of solid bar hangers.
Gogarburn Bridge
See Hungerford (Charing Cross) Bridge, Greater London
This curved Grade A viaduct was built in 1859 to carry the Castle Douglas & Dumfries Railway 90ft high across a narrow valley where the Nunland Burn flows. It has eighteen semicircular arches, each spanning 50ft between tapered piers, in three groups of six separated by king piers which continue up to provide track-side refuges. BHRB, RHB
Completed at the end of the second main phase of building works at Goodrich Castle in about 1300, the approach to this dramatic castle was over a drawbridge to a half-moon barbican and then up an 18ft-wide sloping causeway to cross the dry moat by a second bridge at the entrance to the gatehouse tower. This bridge over the moat is one of the earliest complete and hardly altered bridges in Britain. There are two spans both about 9ft long, the outer with pointed arched ribs at each side with two smaller internal pointed ribs. The inner span has, on each side, a pointed half-arch in three orders and an archivolt ring, and a short length of the deck was originally made in timber and pivoted to form a small drawbridge. The castle was besieged by the Parliamentarians and taken in 1646. Now Grade I listed, it is in the care of English Heritage. ABWW
Goodrich Castle Moat Bridge
Built in 2008, this 125m-long steel structure has a cylindrical spine beam to which are welded cantilever brackets on each side to support the 2m-wide deck. The centre part of the bridge, which is curved in plan, crosses diagonally over the River Stort, the ends then doubling back for the sloping footway to rejoin the riverside footpaths. Steps on either side of the deck near the centre of the footway provide a shorter link between the banks. Each half-length of the sloping deck is supported over the river by two Z-shaped intermediate piers, with a further pair clasping each stairway, all with bases on the river banks. The footway over the bridge forms part of the Hertfordshire Way.
Goods Yard Footbridge
This bridge was built in 1869 for the North Eastern Railway’s line from Doncaster to Hull over the River Ouse. There are five 116ft-long fixed spans, each consisting of three hog-back wrought iron plate girders, and two opening spans to maintain access for shipping to Selby upriver. The shipping channels are crossed by a single centrally-pivoted section, of similar girder construction to the fixed spans, but 251ft long by 16ft deep, weighing 650 tons and providing 100ft-long navigable openings. When built it was the largest such bridge in Britain. Passing vessels have damaged the bridge on several occasions. BHRB, BRBV, CEHN
See Streatley and Goring Bridge, Streatley, West Berkshire
See Derbyshire Bridge, Cat and Fiddle, Derbyshire
The charming little pair of twin humped-back stone bridges over the River Derwent as it flows towards Derwent Water forms one of the most photographed and painted scenes in the whole Lake District. It is possible that the friars who established the local hamlet built an earlier bridge here, but the present structures date from 1675. BBPS, BiB, PBLD
Grange-in-Borrowdale Bridge by John Arthur Dees
The present stone bridge at Grassington was first built in 1603 to replace an old timber bridge. It has four segmental arches, each with double arch rings. In 1783 it was widened on its upstream side to increase the width from 10ft to 24ft and widened again in 1984. The approaches on each bank have also been raised at some time in order to eliminate the original humped-back profile. The Dales Way passes the north-east end of the bridge. ABNE, BiB, BLY, SYBBR
John Rennie built the high-level part of the broad-beam Kennet & Avon Canal to complete the waterway link between the Thames and the Bristol Channel, and the section between Hungerford and Great Bedwyn was opened in 1799. The 12ft-wide bridge at Great Bedwyn, which carries a local road across the canal at a skew, was one of the early skew arches to be built in brick, but without the parallel helical courses of brickwork as was developed later. The underside of the arch barrel shows horizontally coursed brickwork at the diagonally opposite corners of the springing lines where a strip of the vault spans square between the abutments, these courses then tipping up to the skew angle at the other corners. The bridge also has a double string course below the parapets, one of which has lost its rounded brick coping. CEHWW, K
AC
Great Bedwyn Bridge
The timber bridge in the garden of what was originally a Tudor hunting lodge and is now a luxury hotel crosses a U-shaped Saxon moat dating from about 500AD. Built immediately after the First World War to designs by Gilbert Jenkins and the architect W. H. Romaine-Walker, the bridge may be based on a print by the Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige. It was replaced by an identical green oak structure in 2005. The 9ft-wide bridge consists of a single 23ft-span segmental arch with two intermediate timber post supports and, above the stepped walkway, is a timber pergola over which a wisteria is trained.
Great Fosters Japanese Bridge
James Brindley designed this handsome segmental arch roving bridge to carry the towpath of his Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal over its junction with the Trent & Mersey Canal, and it was completed in 1772. It has a span of about 35ft and is unusual for having a featured course of sandstone blocks built outside the brick arch ring. ABTB, CAB, CEHWW
There was an earlier moated medieval hall-house with later Tudor extensions on this site, which was rebuilt in 1582. Further work in the late nineteenth century included a bridge built by the Arts & Crafts architect Philip Webb, which carries a footway from the entrance drive across the moat to the house. The 5ft-wide moat bridge, which is supported by knee-braced timber beams spanning about 15ft, follows immediately after a brick-sided open-fronted porch and is part of a very attractive 14-bay covered way about 110ft long, with the bays open on one or both sides. The pitched and tiled roof is supported on timber posts, which, like the bridge deck beams, are knee-braced.
Great Tangley Manor Bridge
The Greatham Viaduct was built in 1840 as part of the Stockton & Hartlepool Railway. There are ninety-two brick arches, fifty-eight of which are now buried beneath a later embankment. IANEE
Designed by engineers Buro Happold and built in 2004, this footbridge crosses Leith Street in an S-curve on plan to connect the St James’s shopping centre with Calton Hill car park. The aluminium deck is supported within a steel lattice shell with an elliptical cross section composed of six 140mm-diameter steel tubes formed into helices around similar longitudinal tubes, and the bridge spans 46m between slender V-shaped columns.
Designed by Flint & Neill with Moxon Architects this bridge was completed in 2015 and carries the Thames Path across the mouth of Deptford Creek. The 44m-long cable stayed main span has three stays and the 8m backspan contains a counterweight of 120 tonnes. The mast is supported on a 3.7m diameter slewing ring driven by four electric motors and rotates 110o when opening.
There are two similar suspension bridges over the River Ness in the centre of Inverness. Greig Street Bridge was built in 1881 and has a 200ft-long main span and 67ft-long anchor spans. Two closely latticed pylons standing on cast iron piers support the cables. BPJ, CEHSH, HB
Greig Street Bridge
A previous bridge here, probably built in the late fifteenth century, which carried the main Scotch Corner to Carlisle road over the River Greta on the site of a Roman ford, was swept away in the 1771 floods. The architect John Carr designed the present elegant stone structure, completed in 1789, which was paid for by J. B. S. Morritt, whose family owned the adjacent Rokeby Park estate and Morritt Arms Hotel, and whose son was later a patron of the painter John Sell Cotman. The bridge has a single segmental main arch spanning about 80ft and a small flood relief and access opening through the western abutment. On the Rokeby Park side the wide pilasters on the abutments contain empty niches and the spandrels are decorated with small circular ornaments. The abutments are topped by solid parapet walls, between which runs a handsome panelled balustrade. The bridge is greatly favoured by artists and is probably best known from Cotman’s famous watercolour. ABNE, ABTB, BB, BBPS, BCD, BG, BiB, BME, SYBBR
Greta Bridge, Greta Bridge
The Concrete Society voted this bridge, built in 1976, as Britain’s best civil engineering structure of the twentieth century. Designed by the consulting engineers Scott Wilson, with no input at all by architects, the 220m-long structure has four spans, the main span being 73m long and crossing the River Greta at a height of 34m. The bridge consists of a continuous post-tensioned concrete box beam with the parabolically curved soffit for each span chamfered back between midspan and the three intermediate piers, which reduce in height from west to east. The width of these piers also varies depending on the depth to the springing points from a constant crown level of each asymmetrically arched soffit. In addition, the road deck is curved both vertically and horizontally, the whole bridge therefore requiring some very complicated setting out. CQ, NCE
Greta Bridge, Keswick
Crossing the River Frome on the eastern edge of Dorchester, Grey’s Bridge was built in 1748 to avoid the dangerous route over the now-vanished ancient Stockham or Stocking Bridge a few hundred feet to the south. It has three moulded segmental stone arches, the central span being nearly 12ft flanked by outer spans of about 9ft. The resulting hump-backed profile is marked by the deep string course at the original road level. In 1927 the bridge was widened by 6ft on the downstream side in reinforced concrete, with the original stonework rebuilt to face the new elevation. This is the stone bridge, described in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, to which Michael Henchard came to ponder his fate and to learn that Farfrae had moved into his old home. ABSE, BiB, DBHG, DDB
Grey’s Bridge
This structure was completed in 1966 to relieve the adjacent medieval Wye Bridge (qv). The main span consists of five prestressed concrete, hollow-box beams with arched soffits supporting a reinforced concrete deck. There is a short three-span reinforced concrete approach viaduct at each end clad in brickwork. The Wye Valley Walk passes the south end of the bridge. BRW, DB
Greyfriars Bridge
The National Trust garden at Greys Court has a distinctive oriental footbridge spanning a ha-ha and leading to parkland. Commissioned by the owner Lady Brunner to commemorate her adoption of a Chinese daughter and erected in 1979 to a design by Francis Pollen, this is a segmentally-arched timber structure spanning 15ft and surmounted at its centre by a moon gate – a tall portal frame with interlaced circle. This in turn supports the gently curved beam representing the floating bridge of heaven, typical of the entrance to a Shinto shrine. The bridge was damaged by a storm in 2007.
This beautiful Grade I stone bridge, built in 1439, has six main 23ft-span semicircular arches and two smaller flood water arches. These arches stand on tall piers, their imposts being 10ft above normal water level, and are protected by triangular cutwaters with refuges outside the 10ft-wide roadway. The Tamar Valley Discovery Trail crosses the bridge. BB, BME, CEHS, CVBH, OCB
Greystone Bridge
The encircling moat at Groombridge Place dates from 1230 (although the house itself was completely rebuilt in around 1660) and is crossed by three bridges, two of which probably date from the late seventeenth century. The North Bridge may be on the site of an original gatehouse drawbridge. It has three spans: a larger outer arch and two pointed arches, one of which is blocked off on its eastern face. These two pointed spans support a small eighteenth-century building called The Priest’s House (this could be a possible corruption from Price’s House, after an earlier inhabitant), making this one of Britain’s few surviving habitable bridges. The West Bridge, leading to the present main entrance, has a segmental stone arch with brick spandrels and stone parapets, while the later East Bridge, providing access to a service courtyard, has a single semi-elliptical stone arch. The property and its bridges are listed Grade I.
Groombridge Place North Bridge
The architect Thomas Harrison’s single segmental masonry arch bridge over the River Dee spans 200ft, at the time it was built the longest stone arch span in the world and still the longest in Britain. The Grade I bridge has a rise of 42ft and is 33ft wide. Each abutment is decorated with a wide pilaster containing an empty niche and is topped by a classical pediment. The bridge was opened by Princess (later Queen) Victoria in 1832. AB, ABTB, ABWWE, BA, BB, BBPS, BE, BEVA, BiB, BoB, CEHWW, DB, DoB
Grosvenor Bridge, Chester
This was the first railway bridge to provide access into central London from south of the Thames. It was designed by John Fowler with Benjamin Baker and W. Wilson for the Victoria Station & Pimlico Railway to serve two new adjacent terminal stations at Victoria. The bridge, which was built in the remarkably short time of just twelve months, was opened in 1860. It consisted of four segmental wrought iron river arches, the centre two spanning 175ft with a rise of about 18ft, each arch consisting of six ribs. The outer river piers were aligned with those of Chelsea Bridge (qv), a short distance upstream, and were founded on concrete rafts set into excavations in the underlying London clay. The bridge arches supported two lines of mixed (i.e. broad and standard) gauge track on a deck 31ft wide between parapets.
As the railway companies developed their networks south of the river, traffic congestion on the bridge increased and in 1865–1866 a second bridge was built to designs by Sir Charles Fox. This was to the same profile and immediately adjacent to the downstream face of the first bridge, giving a total width of 132ft. Each of the river piers was founded on four 20ft-diameter cast iron caissons sunk into the riverbed and filled with concrete. This new bridge supported four tracks, two of mixed gauge and two of standard gauge, while the existing structure was converted to take three standard gauge tracks.
In 1907 a further extension to the bridge was constructed on the upstream face of the original bridge to take two more tracks, taking the total to nine and increasing the overall width to 178ft. This bridge, by Douglas Fox & Partners, was again to the same segmental arch profile but this time in mild steel.
Between 1963 and 1968 the bridge was totally reconstructed to provide ten parallel rail tracks into and out of Victoria station. The design, by Freeman Fox & Partners, has a separate structure of two steel two-pinned arched box ribs for each track. Although the segmental arch profile was once more made the same as the original bridge, the length of the river spans was reduced by about 10ft in order to increase the widths of the piers and strengthen their foundations to meet higher loadings. BoT, BRBV, CEHL, CLR, CR, CRT, LBC, LBCRR, LBM, RBC, TBDS, TC
An earlier lake here was enlarged in the eighteenth century and embellished with a sham bridge, attributed to James Wyatt, in about 1780. The elaborately decorated structure has three segmental stone arches, the central one spanning 10ft, all with vermiculated voussoirs, projecting keystones and archivolt rings. There are carved medallions above the piers and on the abutments, and the whole facade is topped by a balustraded parapet with a Coade stone urn at each end.
Grove House Sham Bridge
Like nearby Cassiobury Park Bridge (qv), this is another bridge built to look decorative in an attempt to mitigate the effect of building the Grand Junction Canal across private parkland. Constructed during the period 1793–1805, the bridge has a single main segmental arch, the incised voussoir lines stretching across the spandrels, with a small segmental side arch behind each abutment. The parapets, which stand on shallow dentillated cornices, consist of solid sections interspersed with blind balustrades. The whole structure has a gleaming stucco finish.
Guard Bridge was completed in 1419 and, at 443ft long, is considered to be the longest medieval bridge in Scotland. It crosses the tidal part of the River Eden between St Andrews and Dundee with six segmental stone arches with varying span lengths of about 40ft, and is 12ft wide between parapets. The Grade A old bridge, which now carries the Fife Coastal Path, has been bypassed by a modern structure on one side and, on the other, are the remains of a dismantled rail bridge. BB, BoB, BPJ, CEHSL, NTBB
Guard Bridge
This bridge, completed around 1520, has four main very slightly pointed 21ft-span arches in white granite, together with two slightly smaller spans. The pier cutwaters continue to parapet level to provide pedestrian refuges, the normal width between parapets being only 12ft. In July 1644, during the Civil War, Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Essex captured the bridge from Sir Richard Grenville, killing or capturing about 200 Royalists with the loss of about forty of their own men. A few weeks later Charles I defeated Essex at nearby Lostwithiel, the king then marching his troops over the bridge on their way to the inconclusive Second Battle of Newbury. The Tamar Valley Discovery Trail passes the end of the bridge, which is listed Grade I. BB, BoB, CEHS, CVBH, DB, OCB
Gunnislake New Bridge
The present Gunthorpe Bridge was built in 1927 to replace an earlier private toll bridge over the River Trent dating from 1875. Built in reinforced concrete, it has four ribs each consisting of three low segmental arches – a central one spanning 125ft flanked by 102ft-long side spans. The pier ends are decorated with banded pilasters and continue up to form columns with niches and heavy cornices. The Trent Valley Way crosses the bridge. BB, CEHEM
Gunthorpe Bridge
This 1836 bridge is one of only two inhabited railway bridges built in Britain (the other being at Nynehead Court [qv]). In order to help the castle owner come to terms with the idea of lines crossing his land, the Arbroath & Forfar Railway agreed to pay for the bridge over the entrance driveway to look like a medieval gateway. This structure, which contains a porter’s lodge, consists of a Tudor arch flanked by tall octagonal turrets with lancet openings in each face above which are battlemented tops. Linking the turrets above the arch are further crenellations with a raised central merlon for the carved Guthrie arms. BHRB, RHB
In 1869 the Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway Company began running its trains across this bridge, which had been altered from a masonry aqueduct originally built in 1839. The structure has six low-rise segmental arches each spanning about 9ft, but the railway has gone. CEHW