Wye Bridge And Beachley Viaduct, First Severn Crossing

The Wye Bridge and Beachley Viaduct, part of the First Severn Crossing, is a motorway bridge over the Wye estuary and a viaduct over the Beachley peninsula, constructed in 1966 by Freeman Fox and Partners in association with Mott Hay and Anderson, with Sir Percy Thomas as the consulting architect. The bridge features a streamlined all-welded steel deck supported by steel pylons, concrete piers, and foundations, with steel cables, and has an overall length of 543 metres.

The Wye Bridge itself is a 408-metre cable-stayed bridge that crosses the River Wye. It has two pylons located in the central reservation, originally designed with one cable on each side of each pylon. In 1987, the bridge was strengthened by Flint and Neill, which involved increasing the height of the pylons and changing the cable arrangement to double the number of cables. While this alteration changed the appearance of the bridge, its general character has been preserved.

The Beachley Viaduct measures 744 metres in length and features a streamlined all-welded steel deck supported on concrete piers. Both bridges are part of a group with the Severn Bridge and share a similar, though not identical, aerodynamically shaped deck, holding significant historical value. The Wye Bridge is likely the first post-war cable-stayed bridge in England and Wales, and along with the Severn Bridge, it was the first bridge in the world to feature an aerodynamically shaped deck. It is also one of the earliest bridges of its type to use cables arranged in a single plane. The western end of the bridge is located in Wales.