Bridge

This has been the most exciting time our village has had since, oh I dunno, there were real witches and we didn’t need fairy lights?

Anyway, the footbridge connecting the village to the local town was removed a few weeks ago due to rust and rot making it unsafe. And to be honest, if I’d been spanning a river since 1903, I might not be in the best shape.

The old bridge was wooden and arched as many were back in the day; largely, I believe, because that shape is more resilient and better at managing weight than the flat variety*. It had its own history, crossing a tidal river that’s dangerous when the tides are high so that there was relatively easy access to the town for people living in the village. Teenage boys (and probably girls too) used to jump off it into the river despite the deep currents and the rocks in the river-bed.

Not surprisingly, there were concerns about the design of its replacment – would it be an off-the-peg concrete job with metal railings that looked like a motorway reject? Or would some thought have been put into it? Given the likely costs, we weren’t hopeful, but then this arrived:

It arrived in two sections and spent a few days on the Steyning bank before being assembled. Those of us on the other bank were convinced it needed a middle section because the two parts seemed too short for the span. So much for our ability to process perspective. Then, after an aerial ballet in bright sunshine and the lightest breeze anyone could have hoped for, it was guided into place like an inflatable whale in a carnival parade by gentle tugs on the tethers attached at each corner.

As of yesterday (October 2nd), all the necessary bolts are in place and, while we have to wait another two weeks for it to be open, a couple of engineers went across to spontaneous applause – the first to cross the river here for over two years.

This being such an epic event and because I have a plethora of photos to choose from, naturally, I had a go at painting the scene despite absolutely none of it being anywhere close to my skill set. I compounded this by using inks on a small canvas that isn’t in the A series aspect ratio. It occurred to me afterwards that I could have made it so with a top and bottom borderand it may not be too late!

So here it is. It shows the bridge suspended from an assumed crane into a landscape that’s rendered deliberately to reflect its age so, rather than presenting a modern landscape, I’ve aimed here for incongruity via juxtaposition of 21st century engineering with a setting that would be recognisable to the people who lived here in the 15th/16th century** after the river mouth silted up so that it no longer flooded the area. The gate is 20th century.

I had help.

I have no idea what we’re all going to do when we’re finally left alone with no men in orange and fluorescent yellow trundling around in diggers and massive cranes the size of, well, massive cranes. Apparently, the two that removed the old bridge and positioned the new one are the biggest in the country and from a fleet of three based in Hull. Or so a man in yellow told me and I’m in no position to argue!

Late afternoon painting check and I can see the bridge has no curve on its top line, a phrase that owes something to both structural engineering and Strictly Come Dancing.

In an unexpected update, here are two local idiots making the crossing on the outside of the bridge with the incoming tide at full flow just beneath them. This is a Darwin award in the making if they come back the same way.