Sunderland Bridge

Check out these spantastic views of Sunderland Bridge in the eponymously named village of Sunderland Bridge! It's a beauty of a bridge, old and packhorsey with some chunky cutwaters and lovely views up and down the rivers Wear and Browney where they confluence.

After visiting St Bartholomew's Church on Sandra's recommendation, we glimpsed the genteel little arches over the river. The medieval bridge is no longer in use to traffic, apart from as access to Croxdale Hall, though it used to be the main route carrying traffic over the Great North Road.

The sandstone blocks are solid and still look sturdy, considering the first mention of Sunderland Bridge appears in 1425 and then again in 1540 where it's described as having just three arches. Capped with algae and looking like someone's had the occasional munch out of the copping stones, we noticed that the hefty cutwaters, which run right up to road level, are different shapes. Most are triangular, though one was definitely a trapezium...maybe someone had a munch out of that too?

Like many bridges, it's undergone some refurbs over the centuries. It was partly rebuilt in 1769 when the end arch was added after a bit of a tumbledown, maybe around the time of the trapezium incident, and then widened in 1821 after a fatal accident involving a London Mail coach and a driver taking too wide a turn upon entering the narrow bridge.

“Two passengers Mr Thomas Donaldson, a grazier in Perthshire and Mr Sam Whitaker of Bingley, builder, were precipitated into the river from the roof of the Coach over the parapet wall on the upper side of the Bridge, a depth of upwards of 25 feet, and were dashed against the framework of one of the buttresses which as the river was low was left dry.

Mr Donaldson was killed on the spot and Mr Whitaker only survived four hours. The guard was thrown from his seat against the battlement but fell to the inside, and the driver was thrown between the horses and the wall. Mr Chater, the solicitor of Newcastle, who was on the box, escaped by holding on [to a client], the inside passengers received no injury. T

he remains of both the unfortunate sufferers were interred in Brancpeth churchyard on the 23rd attended by a large concourse of people. James Auld the driver of the Mail was found guilty of manslaughter at the August assizes and sentenced to nine months imprisonment but was liberated on February 1822.

The Wellington coach was overturned on the North end of Sunderland Bridge, and one of the horses was killed, in which Mr Holt of Rusheyford presented the bridge at the sessions as inconvenient and dangerous.”

From R. Surtees History of County of Durham

On either side, two further bridges can be seen. To the east is the Croxdale Bridge, painted blue, which picked up the tab on traffic transportation when Sunderland Bridge became too femmer for modern vehicles.

To the west are the carbon copy arches replicating those of Sunderland Bridge of the Croxdale Railway Viaduct. Plenty Azuma trains licking the lines of land and the view of the bridges below, whilst catapulting out of the fabulous North.

Whilst below, in the shadows of the river, Sunderland Bridge is thought to be the most beautiful of bridges spanning the Wear.