The Church Street Bridge is an historic road

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct ...

over the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, ( Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower s ...

and the

Monash Freeway The Monash Freeway is a major urban freeway in Victoria, Australia, linking Melbourne's CBD to its south-eastern suburbs and beyond to the Gippsland region. It carries up to 180,000 vehicles per day and is one of Australia's busiest freewa ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in ...

. It links Church Street in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, Californi ...

on the north bank with

Chapel Street Chapel Street is a street in Melbourne, Victoria, running along the inner suburbs of South Yarra, Prahran, Windsor, St Kilda and St Kilda East. Route Chapel Street is essentially straight and runs for over 4.14 kilometres along an approxim ...

South Yarra South Yarra is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Stonnington local government areas. South Yarra recorded a popu ...

on the south.

History

The first bridge on the site was an iron

girder bridge A girder bridge is a bridge that uses girders as the means of supporting its deck. The two most common types of modern steel girder bridges are plate and box. The term "girder" is often used interchangeably with "beam" in reference to bridge de ...

built in 1857. Purchased from the British government at the end of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

, this bridge had a span with side trusses being solid riveted iron high, designed to prevent Russian snipers from killing British troops. The bridge was dismantled and reconstructed with stone buttresses on the site. The current bridge was designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear and opened in 1923, having three

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low ultimate tensile strength, tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion ...

arches supported by piled foundations. As originally constructed all three spans crossed the river, but with the construction of the South Eastern Arterial in the 1960s, the river was diverted away from under the northern span, and the four lane road was built there instead. This method of construction reduced the clearance available to traffic on the road underneath, and in the 1990s in conjunction with the

CityLink CityLink is a network of tollways in Melbourne, Australia, linking the Tullamarine, West Gate and Monash Freeways and incorporating Bolte Bridge, Burnley Tunnel and other works. In 1996, Transurban was awarded the contract to augment two ex ...

project the arch elements of this span were removed, and replaced by new elements higher at the crown and higher at either end. Specialised monitoring was required during the process to manage the changing loads on the elements of the bridge. In January 2007 rehabilitation work was carried out by

VicRoads VicRoads is a government joint venture in the state of Victoria, Australia. In the state, it is responsible for driver licensing and vehicle registration. It is owned and operated through a joint venture between the Victorian government and a ...

, including waterproofing the concrete deck, replacing the tram tracks, and general resurfacing. This required a total road and tramway closure. Further work commenced in April 2007 and involved replacement of balustrades and new traffic barriers at the kerbs. The bridge is listed on the

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...

and is included in a

Heritage Overlay A Heritage Overlay or HO is one of a number of planning scheme overlays contained in the Victorian Planning Provisions, for use in planning schemes in Victoria, Australia. The heritage overlay schedule of each local government planning scheme li ...

. It is traversed by

Melbourne tram route 78 Melbourne tram route 78 is operated by Yarra Trams on the Melbourne tram network from North Richmond to Balaclava. The 6.5 kilometre route is operated out of Kew depot with A class trams. History A section of Chapel Street was first served ...

References

{{coord, 37, 50, 2.9, S, 144, 59, 47.8, E, type:landmark, display=title Bridges in Melbourne Bridges over the Yarra River Heritage-listed buildings in Melbourne 1923 establishments in Australia Bridges completed in 1923 1857 establishments in Australia Transport in the City of Yarra Buildings and structures in the City of Yarra Transport in the City of Stonnington Buildings and structures in the City of Stonnington