SIXTY YEARS OLD

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 199, 20 May 1931, Page 6

SIXTY YEARS OLD

Wanganui Town Bridge

SOME EARLY HISTORY

Dominion Special Service.

Wanganui, May 19.

Sixty years ago the first bridge was built over the Wanganui River. The structure was originally intended to span a French river, but not being used for this purpose, it was purchased by the Provincial • Government and erected across the Wanganui River opposite Victoria Avenue. It is now known as the Town Bridge. The foundation stone of the bridge -was laid in 1869 with Masonic honours by Tongariro Lodge. The official opening of the bridge took place in 1871, the then Governor-General, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, performing the ceremony. For 40 years the middle span of the bridge was made to swing to. allow ships to puss up udcl clown the river, but years ago water mains were laid across to Taylorville and Duric Hill. Until March, 1883, a penny toll was paid by all who crossed the bridge, except those small boys who crawled across in the gutter. One of the old toll gates is now hung on the entrance to a paddock near the old Brassey Street School, St. John’s A report of the opening of the bridge appeared in the “Illustrated London News” of April 6, 1873. The report reads as follows: —“The seaport town of Wanganui, in the province of Welling ton, North Island, is pleasantly situated on ’the river banks of the navigable and tidal river Wanganui, at a distance of about two miles from the sea. The land about. Wanganui is of a light but rich description, bordering the river for miles in the interior. “The bridge is built over the river where it is nearly as wide as the Thames at Southwark Bridge/ The total length of the bridge, with approaches, is nearly 800 feet, and the roadway is. 18 feet wide. The bridge is constructed of two long wrought-iron girders on the lattice principle, which carry the wroughtiron girders, the timber joists and fourinch wooden floor constituting the platform of the . bridge. The whole of tins structure —including the platform of the drawbridge, which opens and leavcs two passages for ships, each passage or opening 40 feet wide, is supported on six pairs of cast-iron cylinders, coupled together, and forming five spans varying from 115 to 145 feet in length. "The engineer and designer of the bridge in England was Mr. George Robert Stevenson. The ironwork was manufactured by Messrs. Kennard at their works in Crumlin, Wales, and cost, when delivered in the colony, about £15,000. The cost of erection by Mr. McNeill, the colonial contractor, was another £15,000, making 1 a total of £30,000. “Great rejoicings took place on the occasion of the opening by the Governor, Sir George Bowen, who was accompanied by Lady Bowen, on November 28, 1871.’