15472
Walking along the Five Weirs Walk crossing Bailey Bridge as it travels over the River Don, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
The Bailey Bridge was invented by Sir Donald Bailey and still in use all over the world wherever an ‘instant bridge’ is needed. The restored bridge, with contemporary lighting and stainless steel parapets, will celebrate this incredibly successful example of South Yorkshire ingenuity.
Bailey Bridging was developed in South Yorkshire during the last war by Sir Donald Bailey to enable ‘instant‘ bridges of varying spans and carrying capacities to be speedily erected, manually, by unskilled labour and without heavy machinery or cranes. Donald Bailey was born in Rotherham and trained as a civil engineer at the University of Sheffield, before joining the Ministry of Supply just before the start of WW2.
Bailey designed the bridge in 1939 and it soon became a major asset to the Allied armies as they began the reconquest of Nazi occupied territory in North Africa, Italy, Normandy and Germany. General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, believed the Bailey Bridge to have been one of the three most important inventions of the war, alongside Radar and the Heavy Bomber.
Thw Bailey Bridge used here dates from 1945, was built probably for the D-Day landings and was chosen deliberately to celebrate the world-beating engineering design. The unique features of the invention were that a bridge capable of carrying tanks could be erected in a matter of hours from standard lightweight modules with little more than human muscle power and hand tools. With military use in mind it could also be erected and launched across a river from one bank.
It has been restored and adapted by Mandall Engineering of Sheffield and erected in the Sheffield Forgemasters River Don Works, the only building large enough to contain it. It was be brought to site in two sections, by road, and craned into place for fixing by main contractor Land and Water Ltd. Who have constructed the rest of the walk and the concrete abutments. Design of the installation and adaptation to modern use had been carried out by the City Council’s Bridges and Structures Section, who also designed the Cobweb Bridge.
15472
Walking along the Five Weirs Walk crossing Bailey Bridge as it travels over the River Don, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.
The Bailey Bridge was invented by Sir Donald Bailey and still in use all over the world wherever an ‘instant bridge’ is needed. The restored bridge, with contemporary lighting and stainless steel parapets, will celebrate this incredibly successful example of South Yorkshire ingenuity.
Bailey Bridging was developed in South Yorkshire during the last war by Sir Donald Bailey to enable ‘instant‘ bridges of varying spans and carrying capacities to be speedily erected, manually, by unskilled labour and without heavy machinery or cranes. Donald Bailey was born in Rotherham and trained as a civil engineer at the University of Sheffield, before joining the Ministry of Supply just before the start of WW2.
Bailey designed the bridge in 1939 and it soon became a major asset to the Allied armies as they began the reconquest of Nazi occupied territory in North Africa, Italy, Normandy and Germany. General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, believed the Bailey Bridge to have been one of the three most important inventions of the war, alongside Radar and the Heavy Bomber.
Thw Bailey Bridge used here dates from 1945, was built probably for the D-Day landings and was chosen deliberately to celebrate the world-beating engineering design. The unique features of the invention were that a bridge capable of carrying tanks could be erected in a matter of hours from standard lightweight modules with little more than human muscle power and hand tools. With military use in mind it could also be erected and launched across a river from one bank.
It has been restored and adapted by Mandall Engineering of Sheffield and erected in the Sheffield Forgemasters River Don Works, the only building large enough to contain it. It was be brought to site in two sections, by road, and craned into place for fixing by main contractor Land and Water Ltd. Who have constructed the rest of the walk and the concrete abutments. Design of the installation and adaptation to modern use had been carried out by the City Council’s Bridges and Structures Section, who also designed the Cobweb Bridge.