Yorkshire Bridges: 32. Manchester Road Footbridge, Bradford

This is the last bridge in my current series of bridges in Yorkshire. This one is not in Leeds, where most were, but in nearby Bradford.

I wrote about this design in September 2010, before it was built:

To me, the whole effort is uninspired and unattractive, a step backwards visually, and certainly a lost opportunity to exploit the opportunities of structural engineering.

The bridge was designed in sympathy with the Manchester Road bus shelters project, with the same vocabulary of slightly disjointed bright red structural steel. The bridge takes pedestrians and cyclists over the busy main road, connecting to a wider network of pathways.

The bridge was designed by Bradford Council's in-house engineering team, and built by Eric Wright Group. I don't know who the steelwork subcontractor was, and I'm not aware of an architect. It won a Certificate of Excellence from the ICE in 2013.

Visiting the bridge "in-the-flesh", I certainly had to revise my original opinion. Whatever was I thinking?

The Big Red Bridge (as it is apparently known), is big, and red, and more than a little absurd. Obviously, the colour makes it stand out from its surroundings, but I like how it signposts itself so well. You want to go there, from here? The path is obvious.

Like the bus shelters, it is something of a jumble. The bridge supports come in at least three different flavours, but everything is related. I like the way the steel H-sections in the supports are connected together with stiffened intersections.

The central tower, which seemed to be nothing but an impertinent appurtenance, makes sense as an extension of its support, and as a waymarker that anchors the whole assembly visually.

Even the corrugated iron parapet infills lose something of their inherent naffness when painted red and united with the rest of the bridge.

I think it's a very interesting and surprisingly visually attractive bridge, with a bold and very self-consistent sensibility, that fits well into its site.

Further information:

• Google maps

Yorkshire Bridges: 31. Newlay Bridge, Leeds

Okay, this is the penultimate structure in my current sequence of posts. For this one, I headed west out of Leeds to Horsforth, to discover a real gem of a bridge.

Spanning the River Aire, Newlay Bridge was built in 1819, and is one of the oldest surviving cast iron bridges in Yorkshire. It was built by the Bradford-based iron foundry Aydon and Elwell, who also built bridges which survive at Sowerby Bridge (1816) and Walton Hall (1828). Cast iron bridges in Yorkshire date back, of course, to one of the first iron bridges in the world, built at Kirklees in 1769 (yes, ten years before that other one).

The bridge was originally constructed for £1500 at the request of landowner John Pollard, replacing a previous structure built in 1783. A halfpenny toll was charged, earning Pollard £600 per year.

Different accounts vary on what happened to the bridge in later years: Civil Engineering Heritage reports that the bridge was taken over by the Midland Railway and Horsforth Council in 1880, providing access to Newlay and Horsforth Railway Station. The Newlay Conservation Society mention that the Midland Railway built a new footbridge in 1886, which would seem odd if they had just acquired this bridge. Photos suggest the second bridge to have been just downstream, closer to the river weir.

The Pastscape website has a hugely detailed description of the bridge, so I'll not repeat that here. The bridge comprises four cast iron ribs, separated by cast iron bracing members. It spans approximately 25m.

The structure is very well apportioned. The layout and spacing of the bridge spandrel members is surprisingly modern. The edges of the main ribs, and also the centreline of the spandrel members are reinforced with small outstands, which also provide a degree of visual definition to what would otherwise be quite plain.

The stringcourse fascia is subdivided into repeating panels, with the smaller panels coinciding with the main parapet posts above. These posts are an ornate ironwork design, with plain vertical infill bars in the sections in between. Panels on the parapet credit Pollard, Aydon and Elwell.

Leeds Council are planning to refurbish the bridge in summer 2018, although I thought it looked in pretty good condition already. The parapets were repainted as recently as February 2017, although the underside of the bridge was not repainted at that time. As at Leeds Bridge, the bridge will be repainted using a High Ratio Co-Polymerised Calcium Sulfonate Alkyd paint system, specially sourced from North America. The driver seems to be the bridge's bicentennial anniversary, which falls in Spring 2019.

This is a well-preserved, interesting and historic bridge, in a very attractive setting, and well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Further information:

• Google maps
• British Listed Buildings
• Pastscape
• Newlay Conservation Society
• Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England (Rennison, 1996)
• An Encyclopaedia of Britain's Bridges (McFetrich, 2010)

Yorkshire Bridges: 30. Riverside Way Bridge, Leeds

This footbridge was opened in 2007, to a design by Capita Symonds and Carey Jones Architects. Also known as the Whitehall Bridge, it cost £1m to build.

It's a classic modern tilted-arch design. I'm not sure who first designed one of these, but it's a typology that has definitely caught on. I've designed one myself.

Structurally it's fairly straightforward. The bridge deck is curved in plan, so tends to tilt away from its supports. The arch is also curved in plan, so tilts the other way. Connecting the two with cables allows the weight of the arch to balance the weight of the deck and any pedestrians. In addition, the stiffness of the deck helps to brace the arch against buckling.

Riverside Way Bridge is mildly decrepit, with substantial grime disfiguring the metalwork, and one of the parapet cables having snapped and come loose. This could have been guarded against by using shorter lengths of cables, rather than wires which run the full bridge length.

I think the arch looks pretty good from most angles, and I like the detailing where the parapets intersect the arch rib.

Further information:

• Google maps

Yorkshire Bridges: 29. Granary Wharf Footbridge, Leeds

Now, it's time for a modern classic.

I've called this bridge Granary Wharf Footbridge, due to its proximity to Granary Wharf in Leeds, but it could just as easily be called Waterman's Bridge, as it carries Waterman's Place across the River Aire just next to Leeds Railway Station.

In discussion with another bridge designer about bad bridge design, my collocutor considered this to be an essentially honest bridge - clear in how it works and what it does. It is a cable stayed footbridge, with cables on one side of the support tower only, and the tower is therefore immensely stiff and robust, so as to resist the one-sided loading.

It can be seen that the weathering steel support tower is immediately adjacent to a building, and so it could be argued that the designer had little choice, unless they wanted the bridge to rely on the building for support.

I can see the honesty, but this is nonetheless an execrable bridge design. The cables, and the tower are unnecessary: the span is 34m, and several alternative structural forms would have been suitable. The detailing is well done, but the concept is shamelessly crude.

The culprits? I don't know if an architect was involved, but the engineer was Ramboll, and the bridge was fabricated by SH Structures.

Further information:

• Google maps

Yorkshire Bridges: 28. Victoria Bridge, Leeds

Continuing west on the River Aire, the next bridge is Victoria Bridge, completed in 1839 by either George Leather (if you believe this Grade II Listed Building's listing) or his son John Wignall Leather (if you believe the younger Leather's obituary). The Leathers were also responsible for Crown Point Bridge in Leeds, as well as the Stanley Ferry Aqueduct.

Today the bridge carries Victoria Road / Neville Street, a busy highway that carries traffic below Leeds Railway Station.

Victoria Bridge is an elliptical masonry arch bridge, with what I would call "sunrise" voussoirs i.e. it's facing stonework is arranged in a radial pattern. It is an attractive bridge, nicely detailed, although the mutules are a bit fussy (every time I read the Listing for one of these masonry bridges, I seem to learn a new word).

The stringcourse on the bridge shows clear signs of sagging, presumably long-standing.

Further information:

• Google maps
• British Listed Buildings
• CanalPlanAC

Yorkshire Bridges: 27. Leeds Bridge, Leeds

This is another of the older bridges spanning the River Aire in Leeds, but far from the oldest. I previously reported on Crown Point Bridge, complete in 1842, and will shortly cover Victoria Bridge, completed in 1839. The Leeds Bridge which can be seen today wasn't opened until 1873.

However, a bridge at this site may date back at least to the 14th century. The medieval bridge was widened several times, in 1730, 1760 and 1796, before the present-day bridge was built to replace it.

The bridge visible today is a cast iron arch. A plaque on the bridge credits numerous mayors, aldermen and councillors, as well as William Henry Barlow, Consulting Engineer, and Thomas Dyne Steel, Engineer. The contractor was David Nichols, while the ironwork was provided by John Butler.

Barlow also designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge (with John Hawkshaw, completing Brunel's design), and St Pancras Station. Steel had begun his career apprenticed to James Rendel, and had wide experience in railways, mining, and industrial manufacture. According to his obituary, he became a specialist in iron roofs and bridges later in his career.

The bridge is Listed Grade II, and according to the listing, only the external arches are cast iron, with the internal arch ribs being in wrought iron and the deck in steel.

The bridge is currently undergoing strengthening and refurbishment, with a new reinforced concrete slab being installed before complete repainting takes place. The paintwork will be undertaken using a High Ratio Co-Polymerised Calcium Sulfonate Alkyd paint system, specially sourced from North America.

Further information:

• Google maps
• Wikipedia
• Structurae
• British Listed Buildings
• CanalPlanAC

Yorkshire Bridges: 26. Victoria Quays Footbridge, Leeds

This is a nice little bridge just a short distance away from the Centenary Bridge in Leeds.

It spans a basin between Flyboat House and Dock House, just off Navigation Walk, part of the Victoria Quays development, a series of waterside warehouses converted into residential property.

The basin doesn't especially need to be spanned, it's not huge, but no doubt the bridge provides some convenience for residents. It is a private structure, and can be seen but not used by the public.

Timber truss footbridges are reasonably unusual in the UK, and this one had the look of being historic, although it is not. It's form and details are interesting, and explained by the fact that it comprises two roof trussed removed from the adjacent Flyboat House, and used to create a bridge.

Judging from photos of restoration works undertaken by RDF Building Limited in late 2014, much of the timber was in poor condition and was presumably replaced. However, I think the bridge may date to 1986, when the warehouse buildings were converted.

Further information:

• Google maps