Skerton Bridge is a road bridge carrying the southbound lanes of the

A6 road This is a list of roads designated A6. * A006 road (Argentina), a road connecting Las Cuevas with the Christ the Redeemer monument in the border between Argentina and Chile * ''A6 highway (Australia)'' may refer to : ** A6 (Sydney), a road connec ...

over the

River Lune The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England. Etymology Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic in genesis and der ...

in Lancaster,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

, England. The bridge is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

and Scheduled Monument.

History

The history of a bridge at Skerton is somewhat amusingly related in Cross Fleury's 1891 publication ''Time-Honoured Lancaster'', which notes that, with the looming arrival of the

Jacobites Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometime ...

in the first Rising of 1715, the people attempted to forestall a rapid occupation of the town by damaging the only link to the northern bank of the Lune (the

Old Loyne Bridge The Old Loyne Bridge was the main bridge spanning the stretch of River Lune as it ran through the modern day city of Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, extant and in use for at least six hundred years, leading up to its closure and partial demoliti ...

), knocking the battlements off the sides of the existing bridge to its northern end. The Governors of the town had, in fact, planned to blow up the bridge but, upon being informed that the river was shallow enough to ford easily at numerous points, opted not to cause needless damage and settled for strategic demolition instead. The invading force was undeterred by this apparent effort to jeopardise their safe crossing over the water and, ironically, this partial demolition was to be the cause of numerous accidents for many years after, as travellers would occasionally lose control of their wagons and veer off the unprotected side of the bridge, the Jacobites having managed to cross without incident, in the first place. Towards the end of 18th century the Old Loyne Bridge had thereby become inadequate for its purpose. A petition was made for an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...

to allow for the building of a new bridge at a more convenient site; this was passed in June 1782. A competition was held for the design of the new bridge, which was won by Thomas Harrison, his first major commission. The first stone was laid in June 1783, and the bridge was completed in September 1787; it cost £14,000 (equivalent to £ in ). In 1839 repair and repointing of the bridge was supervised by the local architect

Edmund Sharpe Edmund Sharpe (31 October 1809 – 8 May 1877) was an English architect, architectural historian, railway engineer, and sanitary reformer. Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, he was educated first by his parents and then at schools locally and in ...

. An additional arch was added to the south end of the bridge in about 1849 to allow for the passage of the

"Little" North Western Railway The North Western Railway (NWR) was an early British railway company in the north-west of England. It was commonly known as the "Little" North Western Railway, to distinguish it from the larger London and North Western Railway (LNWR). The NWR w ...

(since closed) beneath it. It continues to be used as a road bridge, and when it was examined in 1995 it was considered to be strong enough to carry vehicles weighing up to 40 tons—ten times the weight of the heaviest vehicles in 1783.

Architecture

The bridge is constructed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

ashlar. It consists of five semi-elliptical arches with piers that are articulated by aedicules formed by attached Tuscan columns supporting pediments; it has a

balustraded A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

. The semi-elliptical arches allow it to have a flat road deck. Each of the five original arches spans , and the deck between the parapets is wide. There are stormwater channels in the

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s between the arches and at the

abutments An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

Context

Skerton Bridge was the first large public bridge in England to have a flat rather than a bowed roadway. There had been earlier bridges elsewhere with this feature, for example

Coldstream Bridge Coldstream Bridge, linking Coldstream, Scottish Borders with Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, is an 18th-century listed building, Category A/Grade II* listed bridge between England and Scotland, across the River Tweed. The bridge carries the A ...

(1763) in Scotland, designed by

John Smeaton John Smeaton (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was a British civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the fi ...

, and a bridge at Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris (1768–74; demolished in 1939) by

Jean-Rodolphe Perronet Jean-Rodolphe Perronet (27 October 1708 – 27 February 1794) was a French architect and structural engineer, known for his many stone arch bridges. His best known work is the Pont de la Concorde (1787). Early life Perronet was born in Suresn ...

. Harrison's design influenced John Rennie in his designs of Kelso Bridge (1803),

Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at t ...

(1809–17), and London Bridge (1824–31).

References

Citations

Sources