Llanthony Swing Bridge

GLOUCESTER

844-1/0/10006 LLANTHONY ROAD 03-FEB-03 Gloucester Docks (Northwest,off) Llanthony Swing Bridge

II Railway swing bridge. Constructed 1910, from 1890 Great Western Railway designs. Plate-girder steel swing bridge that pivoted on drum on south eastern bank and rested on two cylindrical iron-clad piers on north west side of river. The iron-clad piers might be the remains of the earlier 1852-4 Brunel swing bridge that he built for the Gloucester and Dean Forest [later South Wales] Railway. The abutments are of stone and brick and the bridge continues on the north west bank as a causeway on stone and brick piers. There is a later footbridge attached to the north east side. The swing bridge was hydraulically powered from Gloucester Docks. The Dock Branch line served the docks and the bridge was required to allow the passage of ships on the East Channel of the River Severn. The bridge has been fixed and is no longer operable as a swing bridge. SOURCE: Swindon Record Office: GWR drawing of hydraulic cylinder. September 1890.