Windsor Bridge

Transcript

Historic Windsor Bridge wasn’t always free to cross…

WINDSOR Bridge today is one of Windsor’s main landmarks, now used by pedestrians, but it was a busy thoroughfare from the 11th Century to the mid-20th Century.

The earliest reference to the bridge is in a document dating to 1192, although it was probably constructed at a slightly earlier date.

In 1242, a new bridge was built from oak trees felled from the Forest of Windsor, by permission of King Henry III, and over the centuries was repaired with timber from the same forest.

The Thames was a major highway for barge trade coming in and out of London. At various times throughout the Middle Ages, the King gave the town the right to collect tolls from boats passing under the bridge (known as ‘pontage’) as well as travellers going over it, to subsidise repairs.

The bridge was one of the town’s most important economic assets, and tolls to cross over the bridge between Windsor and Eton were collected until the end of the 19th Century.

One of the more interesting tolls on record was circa 1730, for the payment of six shillings for carrying a corpse over the bridge. By the early 19th century, the bridge was in a really bad state of repair and it was decided that a new one be built of a much sturdier construction.

In 1818, a Bill was presented to Parliament for the ‘rebuilding, widening and enlarging’ of the bridge.

The works included removal of some buildings to make a new approach and, to help pay for their rebuilding, the toll charges were increased.

The architect who drew up the plans for the bridge was Charles Hollis, in consultation with the great engineer Thomas Telford.

As part of the new technology of the time, cast iron was used to construct Windsor Bridge – this form of construction had already been used successfully by Hollis when he built the parish church in the High Street.

In 1820, the bridge’s cornerstone was laid with Masonic ceremony by the Duke of York.

The construction of the new, iron bridge was completed in June 1824 at a price of £15,000.

Towards the end of the 19th Century, there was a movement for the abolition of the bridge tolls and these were removed in 1898.

By the 1930s, with the increased amount of motor traffic, cracks started to appear in the bridge and various weight restrictions were applied.

At 4 pm on April 10, 1970, a car crossed the bridge for the final time, thus ending nearly 800 years of transportation across Windsor Bridge.

WOOD TO GO: The timber Windsor Bridge before its demolition in 1818.

BRIDGE OVER UNTROUBLED WATERS: Windsor Bridge carrying cars and omnibuses c.1930.

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