Swing Bridges on the Weaver

Time to get in the swing of things! Not that you’re allowed on a swing bridge while it’s swinging but these are yet another aspect of the Cheshire landscape that intrigue me. Apart from the old Kopu Bridge, near Thames in New Zealand – which I never realised until very recently is a swing bridge – I’d never seen bridges that moved in this way before.

As the name suggests, a swing bridge is a movable bridge that swings horizontally to one side of the waterway it spans in order to allow tall river traffic to pass. If the span of the bridge is quite short, as is often the case when it spans one of the local canals, then the bridge pivots only at one end, opening like a gate. If the waterway is wide and the span therefore longer, the bridge pivots on a central point, requiring a structure in the centre of the waterway to support it. Wikipedia has an animated clip showing this movement.  

A swing bridge can carry road, rail or pedestrian traffic across the waterway and, obviously, the traffic has to be stopped (usually by barriers and traffic signals) while the bridge is swinging. So far, I’ve only seen one in action but it was compelling viewing and I was able to get a sequence of photos of the bridge rotating the full 90 degrees and back again.

As it’s one of my nearest waterways, most of the swing bridges I’ve seen have spanned the River Weaver or the Weaver Navigation (the areas of the river that have been made navigable, perhaps through the addition of man-made channels or locks). Here are six of those bridges, in order from the most southerly (the furthest upstream) to the most northerly (the furthest downstream). The red dots on the map mark their approximate positions.

Riversdale Bridge, Northwich

The first of the swing bridge examples I will include here is also the smallest. It’s a pedestrian swing bridge across the Weaver Navigation near Hunt’s Lock in the town of Northwich. The original bridge was a wooden construction, built in 1888 and operated manually – imagine having to move that beast to one side of the river! That first bridge was replaced, around 1930, by another that was almost carbon copy of the original, but that second bridge also fell into disrepair and was closed in 2004 after it failed safety inspections.

The current swing bridge is a modern replacement, opened in December 2010, at a cost of £1.4 million. According to the Northwich Guardian, ‘All the components for the bridge had to be transported down the River Weaver on pontoons’, which, when you consider that the bridge is 45 metres long, is supported by 10 steel tie roads and weighs 50 tonnes, was no mean feat. This bridge is well used, as a short-cut from one side of town to the other, for easy school access by local children and by visitors to nearby Hunt’s Locks, so that replacement cost and the ongoing costs of the bridge's upkeep are well justified.

Hayhurst Bridge, Northwich

Not far downstream from Riversdale is Hayhurst Bridge, a substantial steel and wood construction that carries the busy B5337 (and pedestrians) across the Weaver. According to River Weaver Navigation Society historian Colin Edmondson, Hayhurst was originally known as Navigation Bridge and was built, in 1898, to allow a continual flow of traffic across the river while the adjacent Town Bridge was being converted from a fixed girder bridge to a swing bridge.

A Grade II-listed structure, this is believed to be the first bridge in Britain designed to be electrically operated, although Edmondson notes that the electricity was not connected until May 1899 meaning nearby Town Bridge may have been the first bridge to actually operate by means of electricity – an interesting distinction.

For those partial to more technical information, the Movable Bridges website reports that Hayhurst was the first bridge on mainland Britain to have a large proportion of its weight – 255 of its total 305 tones – supported on a sectional pontoon immersed in the river. Hayhurst was out of action for 9 months in 2004 for £33.5 million refit meaning it will continue to swing for a few years yet!

Town Bridge, Northwich

Six hundred metres downstream from Hayhurst and slap bang in the centre of Northwich is the aptly named Town Bridge. Built by the Weaver Navigation Trustees in 1898-99, the bridge is – together with Hayhurst – purported to be one of the first road swing bridges to be built in Britain and it was the first to be powered by electricity. The single steel span of the bridge was constructed so as to pivot from the western bank of the Weaver and, just like its neighbour downriver, this bridge is massive. Constructed of steel and wood, its superstructure weighs in at 300 tonnes and its substructure weighs 200 tonnes.

Both Hayhurst and Town Bridges have steel gates at either end to stop traffic when the bridges are in operation, and both have small timber-framed and weather-boarded control cabins situated adjacent to the bridges on the Weaver’s western bank.

Almost closed

Winnington Swing Bridge, Northwich

Just a short sail downstream from central Northwich sits another busy, road-traffic swing bridge, the Winnington Bridge. Constructed in 1908-09, it actually replaced an earlier version which had been built in 1901 but which had proven inadequate in design and in carrying capacity. It appears there was much discussion about the siting of this replacement, as there was initially a possibility that it would carry a light railway connection between Warrington and Northwich, as well as road and pedestrian traffic.

The rail option didn’t materialise so the shortest span option was chosen. The Movable Bridges website lists Winnington’s vital statistics as follows: a span of 154 feet, with a pivot point set 61 feet from the short end, giving a long arm of 93 feet; a clear waterway of 55 feet when the bridge is fully open; and it carries a roadway that is 19 feet wide and a 5-foot-wide footpath. 

Winnington Swing Bridge, wide open

According to the British Listed Buildings register, this bridge enabled significant ‘trade expansion and business growth in the area's chemical industry’. It is the only main-road swing bridge on the Weaver Navigation that is not supported on a pontoon, and it is the only one of these six swing bridges that I’ve actually seen in operation. Believe me, it’s an impressive sight to see this massive structure swing to one side and back again.

Looking upstream, showing the brick control tower at left and the island on which the bridge sits

Acton Bridge Swing Bridge

Less than five miles downstream from Winnington is the Acton Bridge Swing Bridge. Built of steel between 1931 and 1933, this bridge sits on an island in the centre of the River Weaver. It replaced an earlier bridge that was located a couple of hundred yards upstream – you can still see the original abutments on the river banks near the Leigh Arms car park.

Looking downstream, showing the circular structure on which the bridge pivots

The immensely talented man responsible for this, and the other five swing bridges listed here, was John Arthur Saner, chief engineer for the Weaver Navigation Trust from 1888 to 1934. He would, no doubt, be amazed to learn that the bridge operation for this particular bridge is now computer controlled!

Sutton Weaver Swing Bridge

The last in my series of River Weaver swing bridges is also the last before the river’s confluence with the Manchester Ship Canal near Runcorn. Built in 1872, the first bridge on this site was 75 feet long and 14 feet wide, weighed in at 20 tons and could be manually operated by just one man. By 1923, it could no longer cope with contemporary traffic so a replacement was built. The new bridge is more than twice the size of the original – it measures 150 feet long by 44 feet wide, carries three lanes of road traffic as well as two footpaths, and the combined weight of the swinging section and the pontoons it sits on is 519 tons (statistics courtesy of the Movable Bridges website).

During 2013-14, this bridge underwent a complete restoration, at a cost of £4.5million, which should ensure it continues to function effectively for another 50 years. As the bridge carries the very busy A56 and an estimated 20,000 vehicles per day, I think it was well worth the money! 

I have gleaned much of the technical information about these bridges from the most excellent Movable Bridge UK website (and contributed a few photographs to their website in return). If you’re interested in bridges in your neck of the woods, you can check their website for UK bridges, and Wikipedia has a list of some that can be found worldwide. 

Cheshire walks: Acton Bridge to Dutton Locks

One thing I quickly realised about British winters is that blue-sky days can be few and far between, especially in the mostly grey days of January. So, when last Wednesday dawned bright, clear and cold, I just had to get out and enjoy it.

My housemate was amenable to an outing so in the car we hopped and off we headed to Acton Bridge. I wanted to photograph the bridge (for a project on swing bridges) and we hadn’t actually planned a walk but, sometimes, when you see a path leading off into the distance, you’ve just got to follow it … so off we went.

The Acton Bridge Swing Bridge crosses the River Weaver and, as it name implies, it can rotate to allow tall river traffic to pass along the river. Swing bridges are fascinating feats of engineering and are relatively common on England’s canals but more on that in a forthcoming blog.

The countryside was looking lovely in the sunshine – a patchwork of dark brown ploughed paddocks and bright green grassy fields edged by elderly oak, ash and beech trees. I thought that was a gate in the fence until I looked closer and realised it’s actually a hunt fence. Although the 2005 Hunting Act banned traditional fox hunting in this country, hunting is still part of countryside culture – only the manner of the hunt has changed.

The reeds lining the river banks glowed in the wintery sun and, though the slight breeze prevented perfect reflections much of the time, there was still a pretty rippled effect on the water. We weren’t intending to walk far as my housemate has a gammy knee but, when we saw that bridge in the distance, we just had to investigate.

And as we got closer the waterway divided and the view got even more intriguing. Now, we obviously had to go further and check out what that was in the river behind the bridge and then, of course, we would have to cross the bridge and check out those boats.

Though we didn’t realise it at the beginning of our walk, our route alongside the river is part of the Weaver Way, a 40-mile-long trail that runs from Frodsham in the north to Audlem in south Cheshire. As the signpost informed us, we were at the halfway point between Frodsham and Northwich. As this section of the Way is only 10 miles long, I plan to do it once the weather improves a little. I do love me a pretty canal-side walk!

From that pedestrian bridge we’d seen in the distance, the further structure became clear. These sluices were built way back in the 1870s, as part of the flood defences that made the Weaver Navigation (the man-made parts of this waterway) a leader in water management at that time. The architectural style is Baroque and each of the eight arches carries a sluice gate, though unfortunately we couldn’t see the water flowing out the other side.

The half-submerged boat, the M.V. Chica, has been in the river since 1993 and is something of a mystery. Some web research produced a report penned by a son-in-law of Thomas Henry Barlow, the last Master of the Chica, which states, amongst other things, that the ship was built in Norway in 1894, was commandeered by the Germans in 1940, was a trader along the North African coast for a time and, in its last incarnation, provided pleasure cruises along the Weaver.

The Chica sits just a hop, skip and a short swim from Dutton Locks. Built in 1874, when the River Weaver and Weaver Navigation were used to transport salt to the Port of Liverpool, this is one of five sets of double locks on this waterway. They were built as replacements for the original eleven smaller locks so that coastal freighters up to 1000 tons could use the river. Although the wooden lock gates looked a bit decrepit to me, the locks are still fully functioning.

We explored the locks, crossing from one side to the other and back again. But we couldn’t stop there. As you can see in the photos (above and below), from the locks we could see there were more things to look at just up ahead.

The former lockkeepers cottages are actually on an island – the river splits here, with one part flowing through the locks and the other through the sluices. That branch of the river rejoins the main stream under the twin-span footbridge known as the Dutton Horse Bridge. Built between 1915 and 1919, according to Wiki, this is one of the ‘earliest remaining examples of a laminated timber structure’ and ‘is also believed to be the sole laminated greenheart timber bridge in the country’. 

Up ahead, we could see the Grade II listed Dutton Viaduct, where the West Coast Main Line railway crosses the River Weaver. Its 20 arches were built in 1836 of red sandstone at a cost of £54,440. 

We didn’t get any closer to the viaduct. My housemate’s gammy knee was beginning to feel the strain of our walk and the clouds were building, making the day feel even colder, so we called it quits at the Horse Bridge. We retraced our steps back to Acton Bridge, drove a short distance further along the river and rewarded ourselves with a delicious lunch at The Riverside Inn, enjoying lovely views of the river as we ate. What a thoroughly pleasant outing it had been!

England: Anderton Boat Lift, Cheshire

And now for something completely different – just to prove I didn’t spend all my time in the UK mooching around historic stately homes, a visit to the world-famous-in-transportation-circles Anderton Boat Lift!  

A bit of background history first though …

Salt, clay and coal were the natural resources that ignited the Industrial Revolution in the north-west of England. Around the Anderton area (it’s very close to Northwich), the production of salt from wild brine and later from rock salt became the major industry, with more than 85,000 tons of salt being transported on the River Weaver in 1777 alone.

As well as using rivers to transport goods, canals were also built. In 1772, the Trent and Mersey Canal was completed, as part of engineer James Brindley’s grand scheme to link the rivers Mersey, Humber, Thames and Severn to create a series of major transportation links across England, the motorways of the time.

The problem at Anderton was how to solve the issues resulting from the 50-foot difference in the levels between the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal. Manually transferring cargo from the river to the canal, using cranes, planes and chutes, was the initial solution but it was time consuming, labour intensive and expensive, and there simply wasn’t enough room for a series of locks to move the boats themselves to the other level.

So, in 1870, the Weaver Navigation Trust members resolved to build a lift that would carry a whole boat (complete with heavy cargo of salt, or whatever) between the two waterways, and the Anderton Boat Lift was formally opened on 26 July 1875. The concept was simple really – sail the boats into a water-filled box, close the box gates, one box goes down, the other box goes up. Apparently, it was Archimedes who discovered that water displaced any weight placed upon it so regardless of the boat or its cargo, the caissons always weigh 252 tons – if I had once learnt that at school, I had since forgotten it.

As I’m obviously no engineer, I’ll let the signboard provide a more detailed explanation of the process:

'How it worked 1875. The hydraulic lift was designed to lift boats and their cargoes sitting in a container of water known as a caisson. The two equal caissons would counter-balance each other like a set of scales. Then by draining a little water from the lower caisson, nearly all of the work pushing this caisson up would be done by the heavier one going down, gently lowering it on a hydraulic ram. The upward caisson would stop just short of the required position and a steam engine provided the power to push it to the top.'

Though the system worked impeccably for the first five years, problems then began to plague the lift. There were ongoing issues with the hydraulic cylinders, partly due to the salty water of the River Weaver corroding the lift’s metal which in turn stopped the hydraulic rams from working smoothly. So, in 1908, the operating system was updated to be powered by a series of electrical motors and to allow the caissons to be operated independently of each other.

A narrow boat emerges from a caisson at the top of the lift

The new system operated successfully for 75 years until, during routine maintenance in 1983, extensive corrosion was discovered in the superstructure. The lift was declared unsafe and shut down, until March 2002, when, after an extensive and extremely expensive restoration programme, the lift was re-opened to traffic. It has been restored to its original hydraulic operating system, and the site now includes a visitor centre (with shop, café and informative exhibits).

To experience this miracle of Victorian engineering firsthand, we took a trip down the lift sitting in the 56-seater canal boat the ‘Edwin Clark’, with a bus load of oldies on an outing from a local town. To be honest, the boat lift, though fascinating, was a bit of a non-event. There was a live commentary from a volunteer guide as we were transported into the heart of the massive iron superstructure, then a very quick descent before we emerged into the river basin with the three-storey lift structure towering over us.

We then extended our cruise to continue down the River Weaver as far as the Town Swing Bridge in Northwich and back, a 45-minute trip. This was a lovely voyage, with pretty scenery, the odd heron and swan sunning themselves or fishing on the river bank, gorgeous blue-sky-and-fluffy-white-cloud reflections on the water, and more interesting snippets of information about the local area from a boat captain who fancied himself as a bit of a comedian!

Later, after a spot of lunch at the café, we headed along the Trent and Mersey Canal towpath aways, accompanied by ducklings and cygnets, passing parked narrow boats and with others sailing by, to a marina where people live in their boats – I have a romantic notion that this would be a fun lifestyle though perhaps not in a marina with neighbours so close.

England: Northwich, Cheshire

The weather was sunny once again – though not renowned for its balmy weather, Blighty was very kind to me during this trip – and Sarah needed to collect some shoes from the repairman in her closest large town, Northwich, so we decided to walk there and back, about an hour each way. 

It was a pleasant stroll and good exercise if rather hot. The first part of our walk was on a footpath along the roadside then we veered off onto trails through the Northwich Community Woodlands, where there are ‘flashes’ – a local word for lake, or, more accurately, areas of land that are filled with water in the winter and spring but mostly dry out over the summer months. These are havens for water birds and, though this was a quiet time for the birds, we saw, at a distance, black-headed gulls, white swan, lapwings and more. It must be a twitcher’s delight in the wetter seasons.

My lesson in the local vernacular continued as Sarah explained that ‘wich’ on the end of a town’s name refers to salt production. There is salt under the surface here – the locals hereabouts have been drying brine to produce salt since Roman times. Rock salt has also been mined in the surrounding area, though this has left large caverns underground which have, in turn, caused problems with subsidence. As part of a major redevelopment of Northwich, the mines have now been stabilised by removing millions of litres of brine and replacing it with a mixture of pulverised fuel ash, salt and cement.

Hopefully, the redevelopment will not overshadow Northwich’s pretty little shopping area, which contains many examples of typical black-and-white half-timbered Cheshire houses, some of which are genuinely old, others made to replicate the old architectural style. According to Professor Wiki, ‘the black-and-white revival was an architectural movement from the middle of the 19th century which reused the vernacular elements of the past, using timber framing’. The Victorians seemed to like the idea of painting the wooden framing black and the panels in between white, as part of their revival of Tudor architecture.

Left, the nightwatchman, with the innkeeper and his wife in the centre, and the towncryer at right

It certainly makes for picturesque images and my photo of the day was of one of these buildings (above), now a shop, that has dragon and monster heads adorning the jettied, carved window heads, and four figures (carved and painted) on either side of the mullioned windows. The figures apparently represent the town cryer and the nightwatchman, and the couple holding cups and plates, the innkeeper and his wife. Other buildings had similar types of decoration and my neck was soon stiff from craning upwards to look at them all.

Northwich also has two very unusual swing bridges, which usually carry road and pedestrian traffic but still have the ability to swing from one end to the side of the river to allow taller river traffic to pass. Hayhurst Bridge, built in 1898, and Town Bridge (pictured here), built a year later, are believed to be the first electrically powered swing bridges in Britain. Two bridges were built so that, when a ship was passing through town, road traffic would always be able to pass over one of them.

The waterway pictured above is the River Weaver (and the River Dane also runs through Northwich) but there are also canals aplenty in this part of the country – used in the past to transport the salt and now for pleasure, with many narrowboats and broader canal boats to be seen. There is something romantic about these boats – imagine living on one and exploring England that way!

My fascination with England’s pub signs began on this day in Northwich, when I first saw the sign for The Swinging Witch. From what I could discover, the name is recent and simply an invention – there is no historical story about the hanging of a local witch to go with it, though local resident Phil Thompson was kind enough to send me information about the case of the supposed demonic possession of a young Northwich lad in 1602. The signs of his ‘possession’ were: ‘the wagging of the head without intermission, supernatural strength, senselessness during his fits, utterance of wonderful speech’ – sounds like the poor lad simply suffered from something like epilepsy.

The Iron Bridge does not have such a colourful story attached – as the sign indicates, it is situated beneath an iron railway bridge – though there is a mystery hanging over it. It was formerly called The Thatched Tavern, though the roof is not thatched and, as the building actually consists of three terraced houses knocked together, it may always have been tiled. Perhaps the name recalls a previous building on the same site. (There will be future blogs on pub signs!)

Northwich, then, was an interesting town to explore. We wandered from one end of town to the other, Sarah got her shoes, and we enjoyed lunch and some people-watching sitting outside a local bakery. Afterwards, we walked back the same way we had come, and it was even hotter! I was to discover the delights of a refreshingly cool jug of Pimm's later that afternoon.