Pic of the day. Monday, August 15th

Richard Wyatt

Well, at least the repaint wasn’t much of a problem!

More of the city’s Grade 11* listed Cleveland Bridge reappears from beneath its protective sheeting as gradual clearance reveals – in Roman numerals – the year it was opened to horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians!

Mr Goodridge’s river crossing has had to bear a much greater weight of wheeled traffic over the years since 1827 – hence the lengthy and costly repairs – but hopefully it will soon reopen to a two-way flow – for cars at least.

Published by Richard Wyatt

Freelance Journalist, broadcaster, columnist and local historian. Director of Bath Newseum. Married and lives in Bath. Interested in local history, architecture and visual display in museums and urban spaces.

2 Comments

  1. Yes, but isn’t black the wrong colour? It was a soft greeny grey before.
    I love the gilding but the black doesn’t strike me as very Georgian.
    It’s in late Victorian times that black becomes the colour of choice.
    All that black paint on railings is wrong. Full marks to the Holburne
    for insisting on the correct colour for theirs – a greeny grey.

    Kirsten

  2. Your conclusion, “..hence the lengthy and costly repairs ..”, is not quite the full picture, Richard. The recently discovered corrosion of the hanger bars has been caused by excessively heavy traffic fracturing their encasing concrete, and allowing water to seep in. Our Council, aided by its Planning Committee in October 2020, knowingly compounded that problem by deviously facilitating the return of 44 Tonne HGVs over the bridge and through our city’s streets. One might ask “Why ever would they do that?!”. Probably because they were ‘encouraged’ by the DfT’s £3.5m Challenge Fund contribution (which I liken to a bribe in this instance) and by its threats of fines if they didn’t. Like our bridge, they buckled instead of standing up to the DfT’s carrot and stick aggression. So, to benefit from the former and avoid the latter they agreed to the DfT’s condition not just to repair the Bridge, but to strengthen it, knowing full well that by doing so it would inevitably be damaged again by the even greater loads the DfT want to send across it.
    There were options, but our Council decided not to pursue them. I couldn’t possibly speculate as to why not, because most of their machinations over this repair/strengthen debacle has been conducted ‘behind closed doors’.

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