Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Great Britain: King's College Bridge in Cambridge

Cambridgeshire County is about 60 miles north of London. It includes Cambridge University with the River Cam running through it. There are many interesting bridges crossing the Cam, but unfortunately I only photographed a few of them. I couldn't find a convenient footpath along the river, which l typically use for looking at bridges. Apparently most people find it more convenient to stand on the back of a small boat (a punt) and push with a long pole while viewing the Cam.

King's College, Queen's College, and several other Colleges at Cambridge have pedestrian bridges named after them that cross the Cam. The first King's College Bridge was built on this site in the 15th century and the current bridge was designed by William Wilkins in 1818. It's a single span, filled spandrel stone arch with a solid parapet and paving stones for a deck. You can see under the arch (in the distance) the 1639 Clare College Bridge with its three spans.

A text I use for UK bridges, The National Trust Book of Bridges refers to the bridge's style as Classical. This usually means the design has shapes reminiscent of those used by the ancient Greeks or Romans. Maybe the use of the arch was picked up from the Romans after the Middle Ages. Or perhaps the author is referring to a style that was less ornate and more functional?
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Great Britain: King's College Bridge in Cambridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

1 comment:

  1. I'm not quite sure what that book means by Classical. The Greeks built very few if any arches, and the Romans mostly built semi-circular arches, whereas this looks like a segmental arch (the Romans did built some segmental arches, but they were not widely known until the 20th century). More generally, Classical architecture was a style which revived Greco-Roman motifs and orders, see http://www.lookingatbuildings.org.uk/styles/classical.html or Wikipedia, but it's hard to see what about this bridge is Classical in that sense.

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