Corporation Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 53°34′15″N0°04′58″W / 53.57075°N 0.08276°W |
Carries | Road, Walkway |
Crosses | Alexandra Dock, Grimsby |
Locale | Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire |
Maintained by | North East Lincolnshire Council |
Characteristics | |
Design | Single-leaf Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge |
Total length | 490 feet (150 m) |
Width | 39 feet (12 m) |
History | |
Opened | Original bridge 1872 Current bridge 1925 |
Statistics | |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | Corporation Bridge |
Designated | 30 June 1999 |
Reference no. | 1379432 |
Location | |
The Corporation Bridge is a Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge over the Old Dock (Alexandra Dock) in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England. Built in 1925, it replaced an earlier swing bridge dating to 1872.
The Grimsby Improvement Act 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. x) allowed the land west of the old dock to be developed, and a bridge built across the dock. [1]
The bridge was constructed by Head Wrightson and the Teesdale Ironworks to the design of Charles Sacre. Situated between the two sets of spans was a horizontally turning swing bridge of 91.25 feet (27.81 m) of asymmetric hogback plate girder design with a clear space when open of 45 feet (14 m). [2]
The bridge opened in 1872 [3]
The bridge spans Alexandra Dock near Victoria Mills, Victoria Street and replaced a swing bridge.
The bridge is an electrically powered road bridge built on the Scherzer rolling lift bridge principle road bridge, built in 1925 to the design of Alfred C. Gardner, docks engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway. The contractors were Sir William Arrol & Co. It was formally opened by the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII), commemorated on a plaque on the bridge and is a Grade II listed building. [4]
The bridge was restored by Great Grimsby Borough Council c. 1980.[ citation needed ]
Although the old dock is now virtually inactive of shipping, the bridge is covered by an act of parliament requiring it to be lifted upon certain requests. Requests were made in the 1990s to allow the historical Ross Tiger and PS Lincoln Castle vessels to enter the old dock and be permanently berthed to serve as museum pieces and restaurants respectively.
The bridge is still occasionally lifted for testing purposes, most recently being done so in May 2016. In 2017, after weeks of repair work, engineers were not able to carry out a test lift of the bridge. [5] A restoration project was carried out from February 2023, funded by the Department of Transport (£2.967m), North East Lincolnshire Council (£1.83m) and the Local Transport Fund (£170,000). As of December 2024, the restoration work is ongoing and there is no given completion date. [6]
The River Hull is a navigable river in the East Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. It rises from a series of springs to the west of Driffield, and enters the Humber Estuary at Kingston upon Hull. Following a period when the Archbishops of York charged tolls for its use, it became a free navigation. The upper reaches became part of the Driffield Navigation from 1770, after which they were again subject to tolls, and the section within the city of Hull came under the jurisdiction of the Port of Hull, with the same result.
The Humber Bridge is a 2.22 km single-span road suspension bridge near Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. When it opened to traffic on 24 June 1981, it was the longest of its type in the world; the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge surpassed it in 1998, and it became the thirteenth-longest by 2024.
Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is 45 mi (72 km) north-east of Lincoln, 33 mi (53 km) south-south-east of Hull, 28 mi (45 km) south-east of Scunthorpe, 50 mi (80 km) east of Doncaster and 80 mi (130 km) south-east of Leeds. In 2021 it had a population of 86,138.
The Tyne Bridge is a through arch bridge over the River Tyne in North East England, linking Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. The bridge was designed by the engineering firm Mott, Hay and Anderson, who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, and was built by Dorman Long and Co. of Middlesbrough. The bridge was officially opened on 10 October 1928 by King George V and has since become a defining symbol of Tyneside. It is ranked as the tenth tallest structure in Newcastle.
A bascule bridge is a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances a span, or leaf, throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- or double-leafed.
West Marsh is an area located in the northern part of Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, England, and is close to Grimsby town centre. Its northern and eastern boundaries are formed by the Alexandra Dock. At its western edge is the Pyewipe industrial area, and at the south the railway line and Cromwell Road. West Marsh is split centrally by the southeast–northwest flow of the River Freshney. West Marsh is a ward of the North East Lincolnshire Unitary Council with a population taken at the 2011 census of 7,754.
The Grimsby District Light Railway (GDLR) was one of three standard gauge railways, all part of the Great Central Railway, promoted by the latter to connect the wider world to Immingham Dock which it built in the early Twentieth Century on an almost uninhabited, greenfield site on the south bank of the Humber, England.
The Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway (G&IER) was an electric light railway, primarily for passenger traffic, linking Great Grimsby with the Port of Immingham in Lincolnshire, England. The line was built by the Great Central Railway (GCR), was absorbed by the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923, and became part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. It ran mainly on reserved track.
The North Avenue Bridge can refer to one of three bridges that has carried North Avenue over the North Branch of the Chicago River on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. A center-pier swing bridge built in 1877 was replaced in 1907 by a bascule bridge, allowing river traffic more room for maneuvering in and out of the North Canal, just north of Goose Island.
PS Lincoln Castle was a coal-fired side-wheel paddle steamer, which ferried passengers across the Humber from the 1941 until 1978. She was the last coal-fired paddle steamer still in regular services in the UK. Later, she served as a pub at Hessle, and then as a restaurant under permanent dock at Alexandra Dock, Grimsby. In September 2010, the Hull Daily Mail reported that she was in an advanced state of demolition, despite the efforts of local people to buy the historic vessel and restore her. On 31 March 2011, the Lincoln Castle Preservation Society were reported to have purchased the broken up parts of the ship for restoration.
The River Freshney is a river in the English county of North East Lincolnshire. The town of Grimsby stands on its banks. It rises from at least four springs on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, although local folklore and oral tradition has it springing from Welbeck Hill. Originally it entered the tidal Humber estuary at Pyewipe, north west of Grimsby, but has been re-routed and now supplies Grimsby Docks. There was an existing haven within the borough of Grimsby but this suffered greatly with silting problems so in 1669 landowners agreed to the diversion of the Freshney through the town to the haven to provide fresh water and improve the flow. It is believed the work was completed in the very early 18th century.
Grimsby electric railway station was the eastern terminus of the Grimsby and Immingham Electric Railway, the western terminus being Immingham Dock, 7 miles (11 km) to the north west.
Keadby Bridge, more formally known as the King George V Bridge, crosses the River Trent near Althorpe and Keadby in Lincolnshire, England. It was designed by Alfred Charles Gardner FRSE MIME.
The Port of Grimsby is located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary at Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire. Sea trade out of Grimsby dates to at least the medieval period. The Grimsby Haven Company began dock development in the late 1700s, and the port was further developed from the 1840s onwards by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) and its successors. The port has had three main dock systems:
The Port of Immingham, also known as Immingham Dock, is a major port on the east coast of England, located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary in the town of Immingham, Lincolnshire. In 2019, the Port of Grimsby & Immingham was the largest port in the United Kingdom by tonnage with 54.1 million tonnes of cargo passing through that year.
White Cart Bridge is a Scherzer rolling lift bascule bridge situated on the A8 road in Renfrew, Scotland. The bridge crosses White Cart Water at the confluence with the Black Cart River. It is one of only two remaining Scherzer type rolling lift bridges in the country, the other being 'the Queenie' at Peterhead Harbour, and became category A listed on 13 December 1994. The bridge is still capable of opening, as the Doosan Babcock factory in Renfrew requires the capability to move large loads by river.
William Donald Scherzer was an American engineer and inventor who invented the rolling lift bridge.
The Great Grimsby Street Tramways Company was a tramway serving Grimsby and Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, England. It was a subsidiary of The Provincial Tramways Company. They opened a horse tramway in 1881, running from the Wheatsheaf Inn in Bargate to the border with Cleethorpes, with a branch along Freeman Street, and extended the line into Cleethorpes in 1887. It followed the trend of many British systems, and was converted to an electric tramway in December 1901. Small extensions were made to the system at both ends, but the basic plan of the system remained the same throughout its life.
The Valley Railway was a shortline railroad which operated between the city of Cleveland and small town of Zoarville in the state of Ohio in the United States. The railroad was founded in 1871, but the first segment of track did not open until 1880 and the line was not completed until 1884. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) obtained a controlling interest in the Valley Railway in 1890. The railroad went bankrupt in 1895, at which time it was reorganized as The Cleveland Terminal and Valley Railroad Company (CT&V). The B&O took over operation of the CT&V in 1909, and the company was merged with the B&O in 1915.
Media related to Corporation Bridge, Grimsby at Wikimedia Commons