PORT TALBOT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
  • Home
  • About us
  • Timeline
  • Blogging Port Talbot
  • Documents
  • Bibliography
  • Gallery
  • 3D models of buildings past
  • Videos
  • People of the town
  • Membership application
  • Links
  • Committee Members and Officers
  • Port Talbot Roll of Honour
  • Members login
  • Contact us

Old bridge: Newbridge

4/9/2014

6 Comments

 
Picture
It's one of our old bridges now but it was christened 'new' because this road bridge replaced a previous rail bridge, the wooden stumps of which can still be seen poking up from the river bed at low tide when you hang over (carefully, please!) the up-river side. 

The plate girder bridge, which opened in 1903 following the expansion of Port Talbot docks in 1890, is listed with Cadw:  ...a finely detailed plate-girder bridge which is unusual at this date for carrying a strategic road rather than a railway. The association with the development of Port Talbot docks is of additional historic interest. (Record 23153). The bases of the original gas lamp-posts are still mounted on its large, square stone piers.  It is now closed to traffic and is a link in NPTCBC’s riverside foot and cycle path network. 

Its listing as a heritage site should mean that the bridge is protected but its future is far from secure. The absence of any maintenance over decades means that a considerable amount of money would have to be spent on it and in 2013 the local authority confirmed their long term plan to replace the bridge with a new footbridge subject to funding and Cadw's approval. 

A year later no further progress has been made and I'm currently waiting to hear back from the Heritage Officer at NPTCBC. 


I'd like to believe that Port Talbot can hold on to Newbridge, one of the few physical traces that remains of our industrial past. But that hope may have to be supported by the community's protective voice.

Picture
6 Comments

    Lynne Rees

    Picture
    Lynne Rees was born and grew up in Port Talbot and blogs as 'the hungry writer' at www.lynnerees.com. Her book, Real Port Talbot, an upbeat and offbeat account of the town and surrounding area, from Bryn to Sandfields, from Margam to Baglan Bay, and everything in between, is published by Seren Books.

    Archives

    April 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    RSS Feed