Montford Bridge is a village and bridge. The village is in

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England, UK. The bridge is in that village. It lies on the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

and is close to the town of

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

Village

Most of the village is in the Montford parish, but some is covered by the Bicton parish. The

A5 road A5 Road may refer to: ;Africa * A5 highway (Nigeria), a road connecting Lagos and Ibadan * A5 road (Zimbabwe), a road connecting Harare and Bulawayo ;Americas * Quebec Autoroute 5, a road in Quebec, Canada * County Route A5 (California) or Bowm ...

used to run through the village (over the Montford Bridge), but has been diverted via the Shrewsbury bypass. There are still some services, such as a shop (closed as of 2011) and a pub (the ''Wingfield Arms''), in the village.

Bridge

The bridge was

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well ...

's first bridge design. It was built by

John Carline John Carline (1730–2 March 1793) was an 18th-century English bridge-builder. Both his son (1758-1834) and grandson (1792-1862) continued the name - the former focussing on churches and church monuments but also building bridges. Life H ...

and John Tilley between 1790 and 1792. It has three masonry elliptical

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

spans, two of 55 ft, and the central one of 58 ft. They are built of red sandstone obtained from Nesscliffe Hill four miles distant. The bridge cost £5,800 to build. Regarding the bridge, Telford wrote:

''The contractors, Messrs. Carline and Tilley, being experienced workmen, it has proved a substantial edifice, having been completed upwards of forty years, and remaining quite perfect''

It was widened in 1963 by adding a

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

slab. The bridge is now a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

.English Heritage
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References

Bibliography

*Cragg, R., ''Civil Engineering Heritage - Wales & West Central England'', Thomas Telford Publishing, 1997, Bridges in Shropshire Bridges completed in 1792 Bridges across the River Severn Grade II listed buildings in Shropshire Villages in Shropshire Bridges by Thomas Telford Grade II listed bridges {{UK-bridge-struct-stub

Village

Bridge

See also

References

Bibliography