Cleveland Bridge is a grade II* listed building located in the World Heritage Site

World Heritage Site

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...

 of Bath, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is notable for the unusual lodges that adorn each corner in a style that could be likened to miniature Greek temple

Greek temple

Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them...

s.

Location

Cleveland Bridge links the A4/London Road in Bath with the A36

A36 road

The A36 is a trunk road and primary route in England that links the port city of Southampton to the city of Bath. At Bath, the A36 connects with the A4 road to Bristol, thus enabling a road link between the major ports of Southampton and Bristol. Originally, the A36 continued onto Avonmouth, but...

 via Bathwick Street, at the point where it is joined by St John's Road.

History

Cleveland Bridge was built in 1826 by William Hazledine

William Hazledine

William Hazledine was a pioneering English Ironmaster whose talent for casting structural ironwork helped to realise the designs of engineers such as Thomas Telford and architects including Henry Goodridge and Charles Bage...

 (Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale

Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby using easily mined "coking coal". The coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides...

 Ironworks) with Henry Goodridge

Henry Goodridge

Henry Edmund Goodridge was an architect whose work started in the 1820s.-Works:Goodridge's neoclassical buildings in Bath include:* Cleveland Bridge;* one of the earliest shopping arcades...

 as the architect, on the site of a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 ferry crossing. Named after the 3rd Duke of Cleveland

Duke of Cleveland

Duke of Cleveland is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The dukedoms were named after Cleveland in northern England....

, it spans the River Avon

River Avon, Bristol

The River Avon is an English river in the south west of the country. To distinguish it from a number of other River Avons in Britain, this river is often also known as the Lower Avon or Bristol Avon...

 at Bathwick

Bathwick

Bathwick is an electoral ward in the City of Bath, England, on the opposite bank of the River Avon to the historic city centre.Bathwick was part of the hundred of Bath Forum....

, and enabled further development of Georgian

Georgian architecture

Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 Bath to take place on the south side of the river. It was designed by architect Henry Goodridge

Henry Goodridge

Henry Edmund Goodridge was an architect whose work started in the 1820s.-Works:Goodridge's neoclassical buildings in Bath include:* Cleveland Bridge;* one of the earliest shopping arcades...

 to take the traffic of his day, horse drawn vehicles and pedestrians, and was constructed using the warm golden Bath Stone

Bath Stone

Bath Stone is an Oolitic Limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England, its warm, honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of Bath, England its distinctive appearance...

 and an elegant cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

 arch

Arch

An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...

ed span.
A toll

Toll bridge

A toll bridge is a bridge over which traffic may pass upon payment of a toll, or fee.- History :The practice of collecting tolls on bridges probably harks back to the days of ferry crossings where people paid a fee to be ferried across stretches of water. As boats became impractical to carry large...

 house was required to charge users of the bridge for the privilege of crossing. Rather than building merely one, Goodridge decided to install four — one on each corner — in order to maintain the absolute symmetry

Symmetry

Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...

 of his elegant neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 design. He provided each of these lodges with columns fronting onto the bridge, giving them the appearance of small ancient temples. This is what still gives the bridge its unique appearance today. Only one of the four (Number 1 next to St John's Road) was actually used as a toll house; the rest were always let to private tenants as small dwellings or shops. Given the small size of these dwellings (one room upstairs, two on the middle floor and one that would have flooded each winter in the basement) it seems extraordinary that the 1891 UK census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 clearly records a family of three people and two lodgers living in one of the lodges.

The bridge was constructed using funds subscribed by numerous local wealthy citizens to a specially formed Bathwick Bridge Company with a view to investors making a return on investment

Return on investment

Return on investment is one way of considering profits in relation to capital invested. Return on assets , return on net assets , return on capital and return on invested capital are similar measures with variations on how “investment” is defined.Marketing not only influences net profits but also...

 through the toll charges. In order to establish the bridge and the company an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 was required and, in a move which would later prove the undoing of the company, the level of the toll was fixed at one penny. Unfortunately for the shareholders of the Bathwick Bridge Company, inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

 took hold during the 19th century and, by the early 20th century, a one penny toll was not worth much. By the 1920s, the revenues from tolls no longer covered the costs of operating and maintaining the bridge.

The Bath Corporation Act of 1925 allowed the City Council

City council

A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...

 to take over the bridge from the now bankrupt Bathwick Bridge Company. To much celebration, it was freed it from tolls for all traffic on 20 June 1927 and extensively restored during 1928 and 1929. Cleveland Bridge is still free to use today, although the next bridge upstream at Bathampton

Bathampton

Bathampton is a village and civil parish east of Bath, England on the south bank of the River Avon. The parish has a population of 1,504.The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the village and a toll bridge links Bathampton to Batheaston on the north bank of the canal.-History:Bathampton Camp is...

 is one of the UK's few remaining privately owned toll bridges.

After the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, a shortage of cash and materials and a general lack of interest in Bath's architecture meant that the fabric of the bridge was neglected. By the 1980s, three out of four of the lodges were derelict and unfit for human habitation. Concerned at the neglect of this unique structure by its owners, Bath and North East Somerset

Bath and North East Somerset

Bath and North East Somerset is a unitary authority that was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the County of Avon. It is part of the Ceremonial county of Somerset...

 Council, a group of local individuals formed a charity (the Bath Historical Buildings Trust) to take a very long lease on three of the lodges and to restore them so that they could once again become homes for people. This work is almost complete.

Capacity

Around the same time that the bridge was freed from toll, heavier vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine

Internal combustion engine

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...

 were making their way onto the roads. The slender cast iron span of Cleveland Bridge required reinforcement. Major steelwork was inserted under the roadway around 1929, giving it the strength which today allows it to carry 38 tonne trucks. Bath has no eastern bypass, so the bridge has become a heavily used "Euro route" for large trucks on their way from Britain's south coast ports to the docks further north. High volumes of local traffic at peak travelling times make this a regular traffic slow spot in the mornings and evenings. All told, over 17,000 vehicles use the bridge each day between 7am and 7pm. Inevitably, accidental strikes to the bridge occur every few months as heavy trucks misjudge the narrow roadway or try to pass each other.

Emergency services connection

Despite the frequent traffic jams on Cleveland Bridge, Bath's only fire and ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

 stations are located next to it and the drivers of emergency vehicles are assertive in expressing their need to cross on the way to respond to an emergency call. The connection between the bridge and these services is long established because the lodge formerly used as a toll house (Number 1) was the 999 response centre for the city of Bath for some time after the Second World War.

The bridge today

The distinctive lodges of Cleveland Bridge are now restored to their former glory and are back in use as homes. One, however, remains a working premises. Sculptures by ceramic artist Peter Hayes are on display around the world but he still works from a studio below his gallery at lodge number 2. His techniques for creating a patina

Patina

Patina is a tarnish that forms on the surface of bronze and similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...

 include immersing half-completed pieces for a period of months in the river, where they absorb minerals from the water.