The Welsh Bridge is a masonry

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 ...

viaduct in 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 ...

, England, which crosses 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 ...

. It connects Frankwell with the town centre. 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. The bridge is located north-west of Shrewsbury whereas its "sister bridge", the English Bridge, is located too the east of the town. The bridge was designed and built from 1793 to 1795 by John Tilley and John Carline (whose namesake father was a mason on the English Bridge), who had built

Montford Bridge Montford Bridge is a village and bridge. The village is in Shropshire, England, UK. The bridge is in that village. It lies on the River Severn and is close to the town of Shrewsbury. Village Most of the village is in the Montford, Shropshi ...

for

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 ...

. It replaced the medieval St George's Bridge. Four of the arches span 43 feet 4 inches, while the fifth and central arch is 46 feet 2 inches, and there is a narrower

towpath A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, Working animal, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mod ...

arch on north end. The bridge is 30 feet wide, and built from Grinshill sandstone. In total it is 266 feet long. It was completed in 1795 at a cost of £8,000. On the south end of the bridge, on the junction with Victoria Avenue, one of the parapets of the bridge has the words "Commit No Nuisance" chiselled into the stone. This is an archaic injunction not to urinate in public.

Gallery

File:WelshBridgeCB2.jpg, The Welsh Bridge, with the river at flood level. File:ShrewsburyBridges.JPG, Another view, with the Frankwell Footbridge in the foreground, and normal river levels. File:Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury, 27 May 2021 from Frankwell Footbridge.jpg, The Welsh Bridge from Frankwell Footbridge. File:Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury, west side 8 June 2021.jpg, West side of the bridge showing Victoria Quay on the opposite side of the river. File:Commit No Nuisance, Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury.jpg, The Commit No Nuisance inscription. File:Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury southern approach, 2021.jpg, The approach to the bridge from the south at Mardol Quay in June 2021. Note the temporary signs instructing pedestrians to walk on the left pavement to aid

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading