Bridge!

[xenith]

This week is Bridge Week! So I shall start with the obvious suspect. The bridge at Richmond lays claim to being the oldest bridge still in use in Australia, or some variation on that.



The first stone of the Bridge over the Coal River was laid on the 11th instant, there being present James Gordon, Esq. and G. W. Gunning, Esq. Magistrates of the Pitt Water and Coal River Districts, and a number of the respectable Settlers of the vicinity. This Bridge secures a passage at all seasons to the fertile District on the farther side of the Coal River, Pitt Water, and the township of Sorell, over a stream which is very generally flooded in the winter and spring. It received the name of Bigge's Bridge, in compliment to His Majesty's late Commissioner to these Colonies.

Hobart Town Gazette, 13 September 1823


From the Australian Heritage Database:

Richmond Bridge, completed in 1825, is a rare place as the earliest, Australian large stone arch bridge and it has had few significant changes to it since it was first constructed so it also has high integrity. Richmond Bridge is seen as being of outstanding heritage value to the nation because of its rarity.


The bridge was constructed to provide continuous access across the Coal River, that is connecting Hobart Town to the east coast and Tasman Peninsula. The Department of Heritage would have us believe it was built to connect the Tasman and Fleurieu peninsulas. That might require a slightly longer structure.

Being as it's the only bridge in the town, it's been subject to traffic that its builders couldn't have imagined, and the occasional collision. Although the main route from Hobart to pints east now runs south of Richmond, the bridge still caters for local traffic. The load limit was reduced in recent years to try and prevent some damage to the structure.


On Saturday last, His Honor the Lieutenant Governor, left Town on an excursion to Pitt Water, and the Coal River; and, on Monday last, was present at the laying out of a Township in the last-named district, to which His Honor gave the name of Richmond; and on the occasion was attended by all the respectable inhabitants of the neighbouring districts. The Township is advantageously situated on the bank of the river, and the Coal River Bridge leads directly towards it.

Hobart Town Gazette, 27 February 1824


The Australian Heritage entry above has a lot about the structure of the bridge...

The bridge is constructed of local (reportedly derived from the nearby Butcher’s Hill), brown (Triassic) sandstone in random coursed, rough ashlar work (with some tool marks evident), on smooth-dressed, inclined piers over the river. The bridge consists of four main semi-circular arches with a smaller arch on each side (six in all), and a stone parapet (terminating in round stone bollards/columns) above a string course. The arches spring from piers which have sloping fins with angular leading edges aligned with the flow of the river. These three large, sloping ‘cutwaters’ encase the original vertical cutwaters.

It is a working, two lane road bridge with a load limit of 10 tonnes. The original roadbed is 25 feet wide (7.2m between parapets) and the length is 135 feet (41m).

The bridge is founded on the river bed at unknown depth. The undulating outline, which is characteristic of the bridge today, is due to uneven settlement of the piers and appeared early in its life.

Also a very long section of the history of the bridge and its immediate environs, both before and after construction.



I hadn't noticed this until I was cropping the previous photo.


From the Mercury, in 1933:

The Oldest Bridge

Although New South Wales lays claim to possessing the oldest bridge in Australia, it appears to be an empty one. The Lennox bridge apparently boasts a centenary, but Tasmania's bridge at Richmond announces on its tablet the date 1823; thus New South Wales has to yield its claim by 10 years. This has been pointed out by a native of Hobart, Mr. Wallace Johnston, and one imagines that the visit of a member of the Royal Australian Historical Society to Hobart is due to this. At all events, the visitor is due here next week, and the Director of the Tourist Bureau (Mr. Emmett) has charged himself with a fund of information and armed himself with photographs of the Richmond bridge, so it looks as if the Historical Society will have to revise its records. It may, however, turn out as has been suggested, that' Tasmania is not regarded as part of tho Common-wealth except for taxation purposes.


A final quote from the Heritage Database:

The "picturesque effect" described by Robinson in 1829 was clearly demonstrated in the sketches and watercolours of Thomas Chapman. They were executed in c1840 and form the earliest known images of the Richmond Bridge.

The bridge was naturally a focus for the noted ornamental and picturesque quality of Richmond, its vernacular character drawing on centuries of precedents in England and Europe, sharply contrasting with the crisp urbanity of the Ross Bridge or the machine-age precision of the Red (brick) Bridge at Campbell Town.

Ross and Campbell Town next?