Kingsland Bridge is a privately owned

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

, spanning 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 ...

between Kingsland and Murivance in

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 ...

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 ...

, owned and operated by the Shrewsbury (Kingsland) Bridge Company. The toll point is located on the Murivance side and the cost for cars to cross is 30p by contactless credit and debit cards only. The bridge also has an honesty box for pedestrians with a suggested payment of 1p. It is a

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 ...

building.

History

A bill promoting the toll bridge was passed as the Shrewsbury (Kingsland) Bridge Act in 1873. The bridge was promoted by Henry Robertson, who was also M.P. for

and designed by the

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

John William Grover. It was constructed in 1883 by the

Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company was a British bridge works and structural steel contractor based in Darlington. It built various structures including the Victoria Falls Bridge, Tees Transporter Bridge, Forth Road Bridge, Forth Road, Hum ...

, which also built the Victoria Falls Bridge. The bridge spans 212 feet (64.6m) and comprises two metal

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 ...

ribs, from which the main bridge deck is hung. It cost £11,156 to build. Kingsland Bridge toll

In January 2025, the bridge's owner announced its intention to raise the toll, for the first time in 13 years, from 20p to 30p and only accept payment by contactless. The pay and display parking meters along the approach road, also owned by the company, had already only accepted contactless since June 2024. Previously, the toll point machines and parking meters only accepted payment by coins. The introduction of the new system was delayed by about a month with the new machines operational by March that year.

References

Sources

*Blackwall, Anthony, ''Historic Bridges of Shropshire'', Shropshire Libraries, 1985, *Listed status a
Borough council
Bridges across the River Severn Bridges in Shrewsbury Bridges completed in 1883 Toll bridges in England Grade II listed bridges Grade II listed buildings in Shropshire {{UK-bridge-struct-stub

History

See also

References

Sources