The Worrall Covered Bridge, also known as the Woralls Bridge is a wooden
covered bridge
A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof, decking, and siding, which in most covered bridges create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered woo ...
carrying Williams Road across the
Williams River in
Rockingham,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. Built about 1870, it is the only surviving 19th-century covered bridge in the town, after the
Hall Covered Bridge collapsed in 1980 and was replaced in 1982, and the
Bartonsville Covered Bridge
The Bartonsville Covered Bridge is a wooden covered bridge in the village of Bartonsville, in Rockingham, Vermont, United States. The bridge is a lattice truss style with a 151-foot span, carrying Lower Bartonsville Road over the Williams Rive ...
was washed away by
Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 ...
in 2011 and replaced in 2012-2013. The bridge was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1973.
Description and history
The Worrall Covered Bridge is located on Williams Road, a dirt road a short distance north of
Vermont Route 103
Vermont Route 103 (VT 103) is a north–south state highway in southern Vermont, United States. It runs from U.S. Route 5 (US 5) in Rockingham in the east to US 7 in Clarendon near Rutland in the west. The Vermont Country Store's second branc ...
, that generally parallels the Williams River on its north side, while
VT 103 follows the river on the south side. The bridge is a
Town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
lattice truss structure, with a total span of and a total structure length of . The trusses rest on stone
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 ...
that have been reinforced with concrete, and the road bed ( wide, or one lane) has been reinforced with laminated beams. It is topped by a gabled metal roof, and is sheathed in vertical board siding, with openings on its south side to improve traffic visibility.
The bridge includes one rare feature — a wooden ramp leading up to the northwest entrance.
The bridge was built in 1870 by Sanford Granger, a local master builder. Of seventeen 19th-century bridges once located in the town, it is the only one that remains. At the time of its National Register listing in 1973, there were three such bridges in Rockingham,
[ but the other two have since been destroyed and replaced with new covered bridges (see above).
]
See also
*
* List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
* List of covered bridges in Vermont
References
External links
*
{{NRHP in Windham County, Vermont
Covered bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
Buildings and structures in Rockingham, Vermont
Bridges completed in 1870
Wooden bridges in Vermont
Covered bridges in Windham County, Vermont
National Register of Historic Places in Windham County, Vermont
Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
Lattice truss bridges in the United States