Berwick Bridge
The Berwick Bridge , also known as the Old Bridge , spans the River Tweed in Berwick-upon-Tweed , Northumberland , England . The current structure is a stone bridge built between 1611 and 1624 , which is protected as Grade I in the English list of monuments . In the same location there were four previous bridges, two of which were destroyed by floods (the original bridge in 1199 and the third bridge in 1294), one by an English attack in 1216, while the last bridge built in 1376 lasted until King Jacob I. of England ordered the construction of the present bridge. At that time it was part of the main road between Edinburgh and London , and the king (who was also James VI of Scotland) had to cross the then dilapidated wooden bridge in 1603 on the way to his coronation in London.
The bridge is 355 m long and 5 m wide. It consists mainly of Tweedmouth sandstone . It has 15 arches with Doric -looking pillar porches (although originally only 13 were planned). James Burell, the bridge's builder, faced floods in 1621 when the bridge was almost finished, delaying its completion for several years. The structure is said to have cost £ 15,000.
The bridge lost its importance to road traffic when the main road was moved west, first to the reinforced concrete Royal Tweed Bridge, built in 1920, and finally in the 1980s when a bypass led the A1 completely around Berwick. The bridge is now a one-way street from east to west (i.e. from Berwick to Tweedmouth). The one-way street regulation is likely to become final and met with little resistance from local businessmen; the now quieter Bridge Street even gave them the option of closing the street on certain Sundays and holding markets for local produce and merchandise.
Web links
- Berwick Bridge on SINE Project / Structure Details, a database from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
- Bridges of the River Tweed
- Berwick-upon-Tweed on Undiscovered Scotland
Coordinates: 55 ° 46 ′ 4.1 ″ N , 2 ° 0 ′ 29.3 ″ W.