Skerton Bridge
54.0545 - 2.7965Koordinaten: 54 ° 3 ' 16.2 " N, 2 ° 47' 47.4 " W
F1
A6 ( south )
Skerton Bridge is a road bridge in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, about flying the southbound lanes of the A6 over the River Lune. The building was placed on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest by English Heritage in the Grade II *.
History
Towards the end of the 18th century proved to be the old medieval bridge over the River Lune to be inadequate for the increased traffic. A petition was submitted to the Parliament, to cause the approval to build a bridge to a more accessible location. This decision was taken in June 1782 and the competition to design the building was won by Thomas Harrison, said it was its first major order. The foundation stone was laid in June 1783 and in September 1787 the building was completed. The construction costs amounted to £ 14,000 ( in today's prices: £ 1,410,000 ). In 1839, the bridge was set and sharpened repaired under the supervision of architect Edmund Sharpe ortsansässigenen. An additional arch was added into the building at the southern end in 1849, to allow the crossing of the now disused North Western Railway. The building is still used as road bridge. A review in 1995 resulted in a carrying capacity that is strong enough to cope with a gross vehicle weight of up to 40 tons endure trucks - about ten times of what 1783, the heaviest vehicles weighed.
Architecture
The bridge is built of cut stones made of sandstone. It consists of five semi-elliptical arches on pillars in Tuscan style and had a balustrade. This arc shape allowed the building the flat road. Each of the five original arches has a span of 19.2 m, the width between parapets is 10 m. In the spandrels between the arches and the bridge pylons channels are built to support the process of flooding. These passages are flanked by Doric pilasters, also sits a gable.
Connection with other structures
Skerton Bridge was the first major public bridge in England with a horizontal roadway. At another place it has previously given bridges with this feature, such as the 1763 by John Smeaton designed Coldstream Bridge in Scotland and 1768-74 in Neuilly -sur -Seine Pont de Neuilly, built by Jean -Rodolphe Perronet, which was canceled in 1939. Harrisons influenced John Rennie in his draft of the Kelso Bridge (1798-1803), the first Waterloo Bridge ( 1809-17 ) and completed after his death by his son 1824-31 new London Bridge.