Bridges of the Clyde III
Scott Andrew Bird
March 21, 2006
When the sun appeared early this morning I hastily made plans, grabbed a camera and headed into town. It was time for the third leg in the 'Bridges of the Clyde' journey.
Although I began only two streets away from my intended starting point (Clyde St, near Victoria Bridge), the superb weather ensured that it would be almost two hours before I would get there. You can take a lot of photographs in two streets.
Two hours later I was once again on the north bank of the Clyde, approaching the Glasgow (aka Broomielaw or Jamaica St) Bridge. This bridge (as seems customary for Glasgow's bridges) was built on the site of an earlier bridge; designed by Thomas Telford. The old design proved so popular that when the new bridge was planned it was designed as a slightly wider (20') replica of the Telford crossing. The foundations were modernised (it was 1899 after all) and the bridge was supported on steel caissons up to 100' deep.
This area proved to be a popular one for crossing the river and within a few hundred metres are no fewer than 4 bridges (including the abovementioned Glasgow Bridge). Two for road traffic, two for rail. Well, only the piers of one rail bridge remain - it was dismantled in 1966-67.
Why two for rail? Victorians enjoyed rail travel, and saw it as a slight inconvenience that the Union Railway had its terminus on the north side of the river (St Enoch Station), whilst the Caledonian Railway Company ended its run at Bridge St on the south side. After years of debate, and £95,000 in compensation paid to the Clyde Trustees, a bridge was constructed to unite the two railways.
This bridge, the Clyde Viaduct, was wide enough for 4 tracks. Three of these were used as approaches to Central Station; the 4th was a siding. By the early 1900s the Caledonian Railway had expanded greatly, and needed far more capacity across the river. In 1905 a second bridge was built alongside the first, this one 194' wide and carrying 13 tracks. At one point this was Britain's widest rail bridge across a river.
The last in this set of four is the George V Bridge at the bottom of Oswald St. Designed to accomodate the transport needs of a growing city, the construction of this bridge was delayed for a decade by the after effects of the 1st World War. It was finally opened in 1928.
Despite looking like a 3 span masonry arch bridge, it's actually a box girder construction with a granite fascia.
After stopping to view 4 bridges in quick succession, it seemed like an inordinately long walk up to the next crossing, the Kingston Bridge. Opened in 1970 by the Queen Mother, this dual span bridge is 1960s concrete architecture at its finest. The section of road which it supports is one of the busiest in Europe, and the bridge has been strengthened in the past couple of years.
Next up was a pleasant surprise - a new bridge under construction. This one at the base of Finnieston St (appropriately named the Finnieston Bridge) is angled - to the other bridges - curved and promises to be quite stylish when complete. It's expected to open sometime next year (the original completion date was July 2006, but I've never heard of a Scottish engineering project finishing on time).
After passing the armadillo (otherwise known as the SECC) I reached Bells Bridge, named for Henry Bell (designer of the first commercial steamboat) and the last within the city limits of Glasgow. This is an elegant suspension bridge, and a fitting tribute to the man who launched Glasgow's shipbuilding industry.
Not content to end there, I crossed at Bell's Bridge to the Glasgow Science Centre, avoided the temptation to spend the afternoon pushing buttons and spinning things around, and crossed back via the Millenium Bridge. Yawn. A felled tree would have proved a more interesting bridge.
Without wishing to end on such a drab construction, I decided to follow the river along to the Clyde Tunnel. The north bank of the river between the tunnel and the Millenium Bridge is currently little more than a hole in the ground, covered in men who are working hard to turn it into something more aesthetically pleasing. Housing, I suspect.
Halfway along to the tunnel I elected to take a detour to the Glasgow Museum of Transport, and I'm afraid that an afternoon of drooling over old cars took precedence over photographing the subway. One for next time.
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