The Shelford Bridge is an important early wrought iron

box girder A box girder or tubular girder (or box beam) is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, as opposed to an i-beam, - or H-beam. Originally constructed of wrought iron joined by riveting, they are now made of rolled steel, rolled ...

road bridge built in 1873-4 over the River Leigh and designed by Charles Anthony Corbett Wilson (1827–1923) on the main road from Melbourne to Portland in

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

. The crossing of the Leigh (or Yarrowee) River may lay claim to the first bridge built in Victoria, when a timber structure was erected in 1840. This was replaced in 1851 with a more substantial bridge on bluestone abutments and piers, and in turn the present iron bridge. The bridge stands on bluestone abutments and piers and has two half-through, wrought iron, box girders continuous over three spans, supporting a riveted wrought iron frame deck. Ironwork was imported from Liverpool via Geelong on the ship ''British Empire''. The spans sit on roller bearings and the ironwork was fabricated on site from components made by the Ballarat ironworks of John Price. It is one of only a handful of bridges of this type in Australia, although there are a number of important European examples such as Brunel's

Britannia Bridge Britannia Bridge () is a bridge in Wales that crosses the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and city of Bangor, Gwynedd, Bangor. It was originally designed and built by the noted railway engineer Robert Stephenson as a tubular bridge of ...

. The 1874 bridge replaced an earlier structure from 1851, which evidently reused the bluestone abutments. CAC Wilson was responsible for a number of early bridges in the Leigh and surrounding shires in his 64 years of practice (1846-1910). The bridge is included on the Victorian Heritage Register, and was saved from demolition when local

Country Roads Board The Country Roads Board was a government authority responsible for the construction and maintenance of main roads in the state of Victoria, Australia between 1913 and 1983. History The Country Roads Board (CRB) was formed to take over respon ...

engineer Peter Alsop convinced his superiors that a new bridge on a better road alignment was a preferable solution.

References

;Notes * Colin O'Connor, Spanning Two Centuries, Historic Bridges of Australia. University of Queensland Press, 1985. p. 103 Road bridges in Victoria (state) Box girder bridges in Australia 1874 establishments in Australia Bridges completed in 1874 Victorian Heritage Register {{VictoriaAU-struct-stub