Bridges, bridges and more bridges

No one would be surprised to hear that Great Yarmouth in Norfolk is situated at the mouth of a river although the main river is the Yare rather than the Yar (I wonder where it picked up the letter e, maybe it is the rich Norfolk accent that lead to to its inclusion)

Not surprisingly for a large town with its historically important port at the mouth of a river there have always been issues with moving people and goods from one side of the river to the other.

Until 1427 the only way across was to use one of  a number of ferries for people and cattle, but that year saw the building of the 1st bridge very close to where the current Haven bridge is sited, in fact the current bridge when it was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1930 was the 7th bridge across the Yare.

The current bridge was constructed by Sir William Arrol & Co. Ltd whose portfolio also included the Forth Rail Bridge in 1890, Tower Bridge in 1894 and the Nile Bridge at Cairo in 1908. They also built the Middlesborough Transporter bridge 19911 (made famous in on TV by Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), The Forth Road Bridge 1964 , The Severn Bridge 1966 and the Humber Bridge 1981 (and was the longest suspension bridge in the world from 1981 to 1998 and is still the 5th largest suspension bridge in the world) so these guys seem to the ones to go to if you want a great bridge built

The 650 ton lifting arms are raised electrically, although can be operated manually in the event of a power failure - blimey that'd take a long time to raise 2 times 650 tons using muscle power alone.

The last ferry stopped working in the early 1990's

In 1845 the Yarmouth Suspension Bridge disaster took place when about 80 people were drowned, mainly children. They had crowded onto the suspension bridge over the river Bure (a tributary of the Ware) to see a circus clown go down the river in a barrel pulled by geese.  The tombstone of George Beloe (aged nine) in St Nicholas' churchyard depicts the bridge collapsing.

The coming of the railways also meant that a swing railway bridge was built to take the direct line from London & Lowestoft over the river. The river traffic was given priority over the trains. The second span on the Cobholm side pivotted on its axis to allow large ships through. In strong winds it could take up to 10 minutes for the operation of the bridge. The bridge was closed to traffic in the 1950's and was demolished in 1962 so it didn't even make it as far as being axed by Dr Beeching


As road traffic around Great Yarmouth and Gorleston increased during the 1970s, the area began to suffer severe congestion problems with long queues of vehicles building up at peak periods. The construction of a new road bridge crossing Breydon Water began in 1984 as part of the Great Yarmouth A12 western bypass and the Gorleston inner relief road. The new bridge was supplied and erected by Cleveland Bridge Ltd. of County Durham and, although completed in 1985, it was not officially opened to road traffic until early in 1986 when the rest of the bypass had been finished. The bridge closely follows the line of the old rail viaduct and, during construction the original pilings were finally removed to make way for the new bridge. The lifting arm weighs around 500 tons and is raised by hydraulics, taking just 90 seconds to open fully. A standby generator was installed as a back up in case of power failure. I believe that it is still be biggest single lifting bascule bridge in the UK luckily without the need for manual backup

The bridge is operated by The Great Yarmouth Port Company

There are now proposed  plans for a third river crossing in Great Yarmouth but in the current economic climate I can't really see these coming to fruition in the foreseeable future