Tailer's Family - journeying!
Project: Kent - Rochester
No. 4 - 5:- Rochester and the River Medway Trip.
Old Rochester Bridge.
...The reconstructed bridge, known today as the Old Bridge, has three arched steel truss spans ...
The premier website for this monument is definitely Rochester Bridge Trust
the whole website is well worth reading and I have copied excerpts from it.
A WORD FROM THE WARDEN
Welcome to the website of The Rochester Bridge Trust. Since Roman times a bridge has crossed the River Medway at Rochester, and since medieval times the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge have maintained this strategic river crossing. ......, crossings as important for today's traffic as at any time in our history. ...... I hope you will enjoy our website and learn more about the history and current work of The Rochester Bridge Trust. My first named predecessor as Bridge Warden in 1383, Robert Rowe, could never have envisaged the technology enabling your research today.
THE ROMAN BRIDGE
Over the centuries before the modern day road bridges there have been three other bridges at Rochester: the Roman bridge, the medieval bridge, and the Victorian bridge. The Roman bridge crossed the River Medway on the line of Watling Street, the main Roman road running from London to Richborough and Dover on the Kent coast. Built soon after the Roman conquest under Claudius in 43 AD, the first bridge across the Medway had nine stone piers constructed on foundations deep below the riverbed. Archaeological evidence of these foundations was found during construction work in the nineteenth century.
In the parishes surrounding Rochester the manors and estates belonging to the king, the archbishop, and the bishop of Rochester were each responsible for keeping a section of the bridge in good repair. Whenever the bridge needed repair, a royal commission consulted the bridgework list kept by the bishop of Rochester and assigned responsibility for repairs. This system worked for centuries until the cold winter of 1381, when the River Medway froze solid. According to the Winchester Chronicle, when the ice melted in February, the combined pressure of flood waters and ice carried away "the great part of the bridge."
THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE
In February 1382 a royal commission was appointed to decide who was responsible to repair the ruined Roman bridge. The commissioners, who included Henry Yevele, the best English architect of his time, and the powerful Kentish knight and landowner Sir John de Cobham, concluded that Rochester needed a new bridge with stone arches. Sir John recruited the help of another wealthy knight, Sir Robert Knolles, and between them they paid for the construction of a new stone bridge 100 yards upstream from the remains of the Roman bridge. Construction began in August 1387 and finished in September 1391.
Although constantly repaired, the medieval stone bridge continued to provide the only crossing at Rochester for almost 500 years. During this time both the river traffic and the road traffic increased steadily, and in the late 18th century the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge extensively modernised the bridge.
The programme of modernisation was completed in 1824, but the refurbished stone bridge was eventually replaced entirely by a new cast iron bridge in 1856.
THE VICTORIAN BRIDGE
Painting of Victorian Cast Iron Bridge. The modernisation of the medieval stone bridge proved to be only a temporary solution to the increasing demands of road and river traffic.
At the insistence of the Admiralty they finally decided on a cast iron bridge with three arches and a ship's passage with a swing bridge that would allow ships with fixed masts to navigate upriver.
The placement of the new bridge on the line of Watling Street and the old Roman bridge required the purchase of considerable property in Strood before construction could begin.
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY
In April 1910, after considering several designs put forward by bridge engineer John Robson, the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge approved plans to reconstruct the bridge by raising the roadway and suspending it from arches above the road surface instead of supporting it on arches below. After an expenditure of £95, 887 the bridge was once again declared open for traffic on 14 May 1914. The reconstructed bridge, known today as the Old Bridge, has three arched steel truss spans and a plate girder approach span with ramps at each end. The Strood Approach at the western end is constructed over brick arches. The carriageway, originally built for two tramway tracks and third lane for overtaking traffic, is 7.93 metres wide. Today, it carries the two lanes of westward-bound traffic from Rochester to Strood.
To understand where these photographs fit into the whole please check the 7th photograph in this Gallery.
rbt.org.uk/bridges/oldgall.htm
Reconstructed Rochester Approach
showing Tramway Tracks Across the Bridge.
To see Large:-
farm4.static.flickr.com/3628/3694710071_15b4ce3ae2_b.jpg
Taken on
July 18, 2007 at 15:43 BST
Project: Kent - Rochester
No. 4 - 5:- Rochester and the River Medway Trip.
Old Rochester Bridge.
...The reconstructed bridge, known today as the Old Bridge, has three arched steel truss spans ...
The premier website for this monument is definitely Rochester Bridge Trust
the whole website is well worth reading and I have copied excerpts from it.
A WORD FROM THE WARDEN
Welcome to the website of The Rochester Bridge Trust. Since Roman times a bridge has crossed the River Medway at Rochester, and since medieval times the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge have maintained this strategic river crossing. ......, crossings as important for today's traffic as at any time in our history. ...... I hope you will enjoy our website and learn more about the history and current work of The Rochester Bridge Trust. My first named predecessor as Bridge Warden in 1383, Robert Rowe, could never have envisaged the technology enabling your research today.
THE ROMAN BRIDGE
Over the centuries before the modern day road bridges there have been three other bridges at Rochester: the Roman bridge, the medieval bridge, and the Victorian bridge. The Roman bridge crossed the River Medway on the line of Watling Street, the main Roman road running from London to Richborough and Dover on the Kent coast. Built soon after the Roman conquest under Claudius in 43 AD, the first bridge across the Medway had nine stone piers constructed on foundations deep below the riverbed. Archaeological evidence of these foundations was found during construction work in the nineteenth century.
In the parishes surrounding Rochester the manors and estates belonging to the king, the archbishop, and the bishop of Rochester were each responsible for keeping a section of the bridge in good repair. Whenever the bridge needed repair, a royal commission consulted the bridgework list kept by the bishop of Rochester and assigned responsibility for repairs. This system worked for centuries until the cold winter of 1381, when the River Medway froze solid. According to the Winchester Chronicle, when the ice melted in February, the combined pressure of flood waters and ice carried away "the great part of the bridge."
THE MEDIEVAL BRIDGE
In February 1382 a royal commission was appointed to decide who was responsible to repair the ruined Roman bridge. The commissioners, who included Henry Yevele, the best English architect of his time, and the powerful Kentish knight and landowner Sir John de Cobham, concluded that Rochester needed a new bridge with stone arches. Sir John recruited the help of another wealthy knight, Sir Robert Knolles, and between them they paid for the construction of a new stone bridge 100 yards upstream from the remains of the Roman bridge. Construction began in August 1387 and finished in September 1391.
Although constantly repaired, the medieval stone bridge continued to provide the only crossing at Rochester for almost 500 years. During this time both the river traffic and the road traffic increased steadily, and in the late 18th century the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge extensively modernised the bridge.
The programme of modernisation was completed in 1824, but the refurbished stone bridge was eventually replaced entirely by a new cast iron bridge in 1856.
THE VICTORIAN BRIDGE
Painting of Victorian Cast Iron Bridge. The modernisation of the medieval stone bridge proved to be only a temporary solution to the increasing demands of road and river traffic.
At the insistence of the Admiralty they finally decided on a cast iron bridge with three arches and a ship's passage with a swing bridge that would allow ships with fixed masts to navigate upriver.
The placement of the new bridge on the line of Watling Street and the old Roman bridge required the purchase of considerable property in Strood before construction could begin.
CONSTRUCTION HISTORY
In April 1910, after considering several designs put forward by bridge engineer John Robson, the Wardens and Assistants of Rochester Bridge approved plans to reconstruct the bridge by raising the roadway and suspending it from arches above the road surface instead of supporting it on arches below. After an expenditure of £95, 887 the bridge was once again declared open for traffic on 14 May 1914. The reconstructed bridge, known today as the Old Bridge, has three arched steel truss spans and a plate girder approach span with ramps at each end. The Strood Approach at the western end is constructed over brick arches. The carriageway, originally built for two tramway tracks and third lane for overtaking traffic, is 7.93 metres wide. Today, it carries the two lanes of westward-bound traffic from Rochester to Strood.
To understand where these photographs fit into the whole please check the 7th photograph in this Gallery.
rbt.org.uk/bridges/oldgall.htm
Reconstructed Rochester Approach
showing Tramway Tracks Across the Bridge.
To see Large:-
farm4.static.flickr.com/3628/3694710071_15b4ce3ae2_b.jpg
Taken on
July 18, 2007 at 15:43 BST