Postcard of the Day No. 113, Sutton Bridge

It seems the arrival of the camera was anticipated since the signalman has brought his daughters along to be part of the photograph. Father is stood behind them as they pose on the balcony.  Another railway employee stands in the doorway to the signal box, sporting a watch and chain.  In the distance the operator of the swing bridge has stepped out of the control cabin to be included in the picture.  All is unusually pristine and crisp - from the timber fencing to the signal gantries via the rivets on the bridge. The track work and the signal cabling is in immaculate condition.

This is the Cross Keys Swing Bridge, an east-west crossing of the River Nene at the Lincolnshire town of Sutton Bridge as photographed from the station. When it opened in 1897, one span served as a roadway while the other was used for railway traffic by the Midland and Great Northern Railway connecting East Anglia with the Midlands and Northern England, mainly for the transport of coal and it remained that way until the railway closed in 1965. The spans are only wide enough for one-way operation and two signal boxes were required to safely filter the rail traffic into a single track. Power supply for moving the bridge was initially provided by two adapted locomotive boilers installed by Armstrong, Whitworth. In latter years electric motors did the job. Commercial shipping bound for Wisbech and leisure craft still pass and the bridge remains in occasional use. Both the bridge and the Engine House (not visible in the postcard) are Grade II* listed by Historic England. 

Heywood Sumner

 

Bridge Postcards of 2020

For some reason 2020 hasn’t been a great year for exploring and photographing bridges and it’s not been much better for acquiring postcards.  Gatherings of elderly postcard obsessives would make the perfect playground for the Coronavirus - as the collectors succumbed the world would be left with mountains of unsold and unwanted postcards. All of which makes this selection of the best bridge postcards much smaller than usual. There are two swing bridges - Cherbourg and Littlehampton. The Littlehampton bridge opened in 1908 and was notable for its elevated control cabin. It was replaced in the 1980s with a pedestrian retractable bridge which does the same job (with difficulty) while offering nothing to delight the eye. The Pont Gisclard is an elegant suspension bridge that carries a  single track railway across a dramatic gorge in Southern France. It also opened in 1908 but in a tragic footnote, bridge designer Albert Gisclard was killed along with 5 others when a load test led to an accident on his own bridge the following year. The Kingsferry vertical lift bridge in Kent links the Isle of Sheppey with the rest of Kent and carries both road and rail. Built in 1960, its concrete towers resemble gigantic Brutalist clamps and convey a sense of strength. There’s an account here of 2020’s single bridge visit (Cannington Viaduct in East Devon) and every hope that number might be exceeded in 2021.

 

Bridges of 2019

This is the regular end-of-year pontine presentation of bridges seen through the camera lens in the last 12 months. With a single exception, all come from Chicago in June. Moveable bridges of various types are a Chicago speciality with at least 20 in the downtown area and as many as 43 across the city. There are double-decker road and rail bridges, lifting bridges and bascule bridges to be seen. Every major road running north or west of the Loop has to cross the Chicago River and their presence adds a vital element to the city’s spectacular cityscape. The exception is from Dresden in January - die Blaue Brücke that crosses the River Elbe connecting the affluent eastern suburbs of Blasewitz and Loschwitz. Also known as Loschwitzer Brücke, and der Blaues Wunder (or Blue Wonder), it’s a cantilever truss bridge and opened in 1893 after a two year build. In 1945 the efforts of the SS to destroy the bridge were thwarted when two civilians cut the wires connecting the detonator with the explosives. 

Bridges of 2018

This is the regular end-of-year review of bridges seen through the camera lens in the last 12 months. The most spectacular bridge of 2018 was the Rendsburg Höchbrücke, described and illustrated here but visits to two other cities in Schleswig-Holstein were well supplied with bridges – Hamburg and Lübeck, from which examples are displayed below. Above is the single bridge from the British Isles – a swing-bridge seen in Ramsey on the Isle of Man. Follow this link to see the 2017 selection.