A quick background shot on
television of Sydney Harbour Bridge reminded me of watching silent black and
white footage on the building of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle’s Discovery Museum
a few years before (the gift shop doing a roaring trade in ‘coal from
Newcastle’).
Newcastle is a Roman city (named
after a Norman construction), so it’s no surprise the first bridge to cross the
River Tyne (the Pons Aelius) between Newcastle and Gateshead was built by the
engineers of the mighty Roman army, and stood in the vicinity of the modern Tyne Bridge.
It’s perhaps more of a surprise
to learn that the Roman bridge was used for almost 1000 years, finally falling
into disrepair and being replaced in 1270. You can get a lot for your money up
north, and a second bridge lasted a further 500 years until it was destroyed
by flooding in 1771.
At Newcastle's heart
Construction of the ‘New Tyne
Bridge’ was begun in 1925. Contrary to what I’ve heard in the past it wasn’t a
scale model for Sydney’s similar looking Harbour Bridge, which was started two
years beforehand by the same Middleborough based construction company.
The Tyne Bridge was opened three
years later; King George V and Queen Mary the first to travel across its 160
metre stretch between the stone pillars.
As a mark of the north-east’s industrial
pride the bridge has become Newcastle’s centrepiece. I was lucky enough to run
along its roadway a few years ago, the Red Arrows roaring above me, while
taking part in the annual Great North Run half-marathon.
Even more recently the bridge
held the largest rings of the London 2012 Olympics, stretching 25 metres across
and 12 metres high.