Northern Spire Bridge

If, like me, you may have spied the Northern Spire Bridge on your travels up and down the A19 as you cross the River Wear near Sunderland, and thought "I must have a closer look one day", well today I did.

This bridge was built between 2015 and 2018 and it had been 40 years since a bridge over the River Wear had been constructed. The powers that be had been discussing a new river crossing since 2005, but funds were limited, so the project was put on hold.

The Northern Spire Bridge is a cable-stayed structure forming a fan-like appearance. This is the goldilocks of bridges between a suspension and a cantilever bridge. There are four major classes of rigging on cable-stayed bridges: mono, harp, fan, and star. This is fan rigging.

Here are five fascinating facts about the Northern Spire Bridge

1. The main pylon in the middle was fabricated in Belgium and was shipped from Ghent across to Sunderland.

2.It weighs 1,550 tonnes, that's 7 and a bit onshore wind turbines.

3. The pylon is 105 metres in height and is the tallest construction in the North East. The Angel of the North is a mere 20 metres in height.

4. A cofferdam was constructed to hold supports that could be used for the pylon.

5. The pylon took 15 ½ hours to be lifted into position.

Have a look underneath the bridge, and you can see all the technical stuff, baffles and bearing et al.

There are some cracking photographs out there, and here is a brilliant capture by Steve from Geordie Pixels, who consented for it to be shown here. I do believe he was in the middle of the road when he captured this.

Does anyone else think the pylon resembles a wishbone?