Mythe Bridge carries the A438 road across the River Severn

River Severn

The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

 at Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...

. It is a 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 bridge

Arch bridge

An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side...

 spanning 170 feet (52m) and 24 feet (7.3m) wide, designed by Thomas Telford

Thomas Telford

Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder.-Early career:...

 and completed in April 1826.




Telford was appointed to design the bridge in 1823, following a dispute between the bridge trustees and their existing architect, who had proposed a bridge with three shorter iron arches. Telford changed the scheme to a single span so as to reduce interference with navigation of the river, and also to eliminate the expense of construction foundations in the river gravels.
Like Telford's Craigellachie Bridge

Craigellachie Bridge

The Craigellachie Bridge is a cast iron arch bridge located at Craigellachie which is near to the village of Aberlour in Moray, Scotland. It was designed by the renowned civil engineer Thomas Telford and built from 1812–1814...

, Mythe Bridge was cast 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...

, and is similar in form to Telford's Galton Bridge

Galton Bridge

Galton Bridge is a canal bridge in Smethwick, West Midlands, England built by Thomas Telford in 1829. It spans Telford's Birmingham Canal Navigations New Main Line carrying Roebuck Lane. When it was constructed, its single span of 151 feet was the highest in the world . Originally a road bridge...

, which spans the Birmingham Canal at Smethwick

Smethwick

Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....

. It has six cast iron ribs, each cast in 23-foot (7m) lengths, with spandrel

Spandrel

A spandrel, less often spandril or splaundrel, is the space between two arches or between an arch and a rectangular enclosure....

s filled with X-shaped bracing. Telford described the iron as "best Shropshire iron, commonly called No. 2". The arch rises 17 feet (5.2m), one tenth of the span.

The total cost of the bridge including masonry approaches was £14,500. It was originally a toll bridge, but tolls were removed in 1850.

Telford wrote:

I reckon this the most handsomest bridge which has been built under my direction ...

In 1990 traffic was limited to 7.5 tons, increased to 17 tons after the bridge was strengthened in 1992.