Replication of a 100 year old Victorian bridge

Not many people are lucky enough to have the opportunity to build a bridge. After years of neglect, this once beautiful victorian bridge had fallen to disrepair. The wrong type of paint was once used, resulting in water being trapped under the oily layer and the wood to rot from the inside out.

The bridge was once used in the film "The Shooting Party" and tragically has since then rapidly deteriorated.

When the funds were finally available to restore this structure, we could not say no. The original bridge was made in softwood timber and painted over. We proposed to replace all the timber with English oak from the estate's own woods, reducing the carbon footprint. We have also planted 10 times as many oak trees elsewhere to replace the ones we used in this project.

This bridge is a labour of love from a handful of dedicated craftsmen (and women) who live locally. 

As we wanted to stay as true to the original build as possible, using traditional joints, we carefully took apart the old bridge and used it as a template to construct the replica. The bridge was especially hard to build because the Victorians had chosen to twist the posts off-square and form the brick plinths at an oblique angle to the direction of the bridge. We believe it may have been to improve the view of the bridge from a certain viewing point on the South bank of the lake.

The foundations proved to be adequate by our consulting structural engineer for the additional weight imposed by using English oak. However, we had to rebuild the two foundations at the embankments as they had worn away over the years.

We are currently working every weekend and whenever our other work permits, to enable this special project to be built within budget and to the highest possible.