The Monk Bretton Bridge is a road bridge over the River Rother in

Rye, East Sussex is a small town and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England, two miles from the sea at the confluence of three rivers: the Rother, the Tillingham and the Brede. An important member of the mediaeval Cinque Ports confederatio ...

. It carries the

A259 road The A259 is a road on the south coast of England passing through Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent, and is the longest Zone 2 A road in Great Britain. The main part of the road connects Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, Rye and Folk ...

, a major road between

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

and

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

, and is the most downstream crossing of the river. The area around the river beyond this resembles

saltmarsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

compared to that further upstream. The bridge was planned as a replacement for a ferry over the river that carried fisherman traffic from

Camber Camber may refer to a variety of curvatures and angles: * Camber angle, the angle made by the wheels of a vehicle * Camber beam, an upward curvature of a joist to compensate for load deflection due in buildings * Camber thrust in bike technology * ...

and

East Guldeford East Guldeford is a village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. The village is located one mile (1.6 km) east of Rye on the A259 road. The parish is controlled by a parish meeting. It is in the civil parish of ...

to the fish market at Rye. It opened on 25 April 1893 at a cost of £3,160 (£ as of ) and was named after

John George Dodson, 1st Baron Monk Bretton John George Dodson, 1st Baron Monk Bretton, PC (18 October 1825 – 25 May 1897), known before 1884 as John George Dodson, was a British Liberal politician. He was Chairman of Ways and Means (Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons) between 186 ...

. The bridge was constructed by a deck supported on two sets of iron piles. It was later reinforced with concrete. The

Rye and Camber Tramway The Rye and Camber Tramway was an English railway in East Sussex. It was of narrow gauge, relatively unusual amongst British narrow gauge railways. It operated from 1895 until 1939, connecting Rye to the coast. It was about in len ...

opened in 1895, with the Rye station located east of the River Rother. It did not connect to the main railway line (now the

Marshlink line The Marshlink line is a railway line in South East England. It runs from Ashford, Kent via Romney Marsh, Rye and the Ore Tunnel to Hastings where it connects to the East Coastway line towards Eastbourne. Services are provided by Southern. T ...

); instead passengers travelled between the two stations via the Monk Bretton Bridge. The bridge was closed in October 2007 for refurbishment, involving lengthy detours.

References

Road bridges in England Rye, East Sussex {{UK-bridge-struct-stub