Chartist Bridge / Pont y Siartwyr across the Sirhowy Valley at Blackwood
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Chartist Bridge / Pont y Siartwyr across the Sirhowy Valley at Blackwood by Jeremy Bolwell as part of the Geograph project.
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Chartist Bridge / Pont y Siartwyr across the Sirhowy Valley at Blackwood
Image: © Jeremy Bolwell Taken: 14 Oct 2012
A pretty stunning and attractive newish (2005) bridge which commemorates the Chartist movement locally back in the winter of 1839. So doubly striking and significant. The Chartist Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge some 230m long, supported 30m above the wooded valley floor by a 90m A-frame pylon. Difficulties with mining related subsidence during construction, and in its foreseeable lifetime, led the Cardiff-based Ove-Arup design team to allow the bridge 'to breathe' if settlement does occur. The road bridge and the Sirhowy Enterprise Way, of which it forms a key part, are owned and operated by Costain & Lang Construction in a JV, under a 30 year DBFO (Design, Build, Finance, Operate) agreement and now links the east and west sides of the Sirhowy Valley, which previously necessitated a frustrating detour down, or up, a steep 1-in-4 hill road on the valley bottom, known locally as the Rhiw.
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Image Location
Latitude
51.674154
Longitude
-3.1939