Holt Fleet Bridge, also known as Holt Bridge, is a

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its structural load, loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either si ...

over 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 ...

, at Holt in

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

, England. It has a span of ; it was designed by

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 ...

and opened in 1828. It is

Grade II listed 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 ...

, and is similar to Telford's

Galton Bridge The Galton Bridge is a cast-iron bridge in Smethwick, near Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Opened in 1829 as a road bridge, the structure has been pedestrianised since the 1970s. It was built by Thomas Telford to carry a road ac ...

, which is a Grade I listed structure that spans his BCN New Main Line canal at

Smethwick Smethwick () is an industrial town in the Sandwell district, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before bei ...

. The bridge was built with five cast-iron ribs, with X-braced

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

s, as were several of Telford's bridges. It was strengthened in 1928.Thomas Telford's Bridges Over the River Severn
/ref> when the upper and lower parts of each rib and some of the diagonal struts above them were encased in concrete. The road deck was rebuilt in

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 ...

and widened at the same time. Semicircular arches at each end, built in red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

, allow for the passage of riverbank foot-traffic and floodwater.

References

External links

photos of Holt Fleet Bridge and surrounding area on geograph
* *
The Holt Fleet - a historic restaurant adjacent to the Holt Fleet Bridge
{{coord, 52.26757, -2.26079, type:landmark_region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SO823633), display=title Bridges across the River Severn Bridges in Worcestershire Bridges completed in 1828 Grade II listed buildings in Worcestershire Bridges by Thomas Telford

See also

References

External links