Skeldergate Bridge And Attached Tollhouse, Abutment Walls And Steps

Skeldergate Bridge and Attached Tollhouse, Abutment Walls and Steps

This bridge, tollhouse, steps, and abutment walls extend to enclose St George's Field park and carpark, and Skeldergate park. Built between 1879 and 1881, the structure was reconstructed and strengthened in 1938-39. It was designed by Thomas and George Page.

The bridge comprises steel and cast-iron girders on ashlar piers with a cast-iron parapet. The attached tollhouse is built in ashlar with a hipped slate roof and an embattled tower featuring paired octagonal stacks with moulded cornices. The abutment walls and steps are also of ashlar.

The bridge itself spans the river with three spans between single pedestrian arches. The four-centred arches, with the centre one flattened, feature traceried spandrels incorporating the City arms of York and the Keys of St Peter. The piers are treated as machicolated turrets, with those flanking the centre arch castellated. The parapet is pierced by quatrefoils above a band of heraldic badges. Half-octagonal embrasures in the parapet enclose octagonal pedestals on chamfered plinths, each surmounted by a gas lamp standard of five octagonal shafts linked by tracery. The outer shafts have ogee caps and crocket finials, interspersed with crocketed gablets. The centre shaft is cast in blind trellis work incorporating the York rose. A traceried head supports three tapered lanterns with pennant finials, encircled by coronets, with tracery incorporating the City arms.

The tollhouse rises two storeys on a basement plinth and features a three-stage octagonal tower and a two-stage projecting staircase tower. A segment-arched doorway is approached by external steps, with slit lights in the staircase tower. Windows elsewhere are mullioned and transomed, in one, two, or three lights, with traceried heads and square-latticed glazing. A panelled door to the tollbooth at bridge level sits beneath a half-hipped canopy on carved brackets. Mullions and window and door surrounds are hollow chamfered.

On the north-east bank, the downstream abutment contains a blocked round-arched doorway to a room that formerly housed machinery for opening the adjacent river span of the bridge.

A panel to the left of the tollbooth door reads: "This bridge was formally declared free from tolls on April 1st 1914 by The Right Hon Henry Rhodes Brown Lord Mayor Robert Newbald Kay Esquire. Sheriff Alderman Norman Green (Chairman of Bridge Committee)."

The abutment walls have moulded coping. The piers form pedestals to tapering octagonal gas lamp standards on stepped bases; tapered lanterns, encircled by coronets, have pennant finials.

A foundation stone set in the upstream parapet reads: "The Foundation Stone of this Bridge was laid 12th June 1878 by The Right Honourable William Lord Mayor John Bellerby Esquire, Sheriff. George Gordon Page Esquire, Engineer."

A second stone in the downstream parapet reads: "This Bridge was first used by Foot Passengers on the 1st January 1881, and was formally Opened for General Traffic on the 10th March 1881, by the Right Honourable John Stephenson Rowntree, Lord Mayor Richard Thompson Esquire, Sheriff."

The interior of the tollhouse was not inspected at the time of listing.