3-017-313 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Lattice-girder bridge over the River Wye, 1865. A bridge built '...to replace the old bridge connected with the high road, near the Welsh border town of Hay, where the River Wye forms a the boundary between Brecknockshire and Radnorshire. Here for the last hundred years existed a wooden bridge, whose somewhat crazy structure was patched and renewed more than once when torn away by the heavy floods to which the river is periodically subject...The erection was intrusted to Messrs. Handyside and Co., engineers, of Derby and London, while Mr. W. C. Hughes, C.E., supplied the design. This bridge has an imposing and lofty elevation. It is 388 ft. long, and the rail-level is 50 ft. above the surface of the water. There are four river-spans of 72 ft. and two shore-spans of 20 ft., and the breadth of roadway is 22 ft. The wrought-iron columns are attached to a heavy iron caisson, resting on the river bed...On the columns are placed the main lattice girders, on the bottom of which is the roadway, constructed of iron, corrugated in a peculiar manner patented by Mr. Hughes, and trussed with strong iron rods. The rocks seen in the Engraving are the ruins of the foundations of the old structure'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.