Wylam Railway Bridge

Wylam Railway Bridge, also known locally as Points Bridge, Half-moon Bridge, Hagg Bank Bridge, Bird Cage Bridge, or The Tin Bridge, is a footbridge and former railway bridge crossing the River Tyne at Hagg Bank, approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) west of Wylam in Northumberland, England.

History

The bridge was originally built for the Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway,^[1] to connect the North Wylam Loop with the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway.

A number of bodies were involved in the bridge's construction; W G Laws engineered the bridge, W E Jackson & Co. of Newcastle upon Tyne built the bridge's foundations and masonry, while Hawks, Crayshay & Co. of Gateshead manufactured the ironwork. The bridge cost £16,000 to build and was opened to rail traffic on 6 October 1876.

Railway service on the bridge was ended in 1968 when the line was closed under the Beeching Axe. The trackwork was removed in 1972 and the bridge was subsequently converted into a footbridge and cyclepath linking Wylam with the Tyne Riverside Country Park at Low Prudhoe in 1975.

Design

The bridge's design came about because it needed to avoid having piers in the river bed which would disrupt shallow mine workings underneath. It is thought that Wylam Railway Bridge was a model for the later Tyne Bridge in nearby Newcastle and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.^[2] Wylam Railway Bridge is one of the earliest through arch bridges in the world.

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