History
The existing bridge is the third to be located on the site. William Ponsonby, a Member of Parliament for Poole, was responsible for building the first bridge in 1834. Ponsonby promoted his own Act of Parliament to build the wooden toll bridge. However, the bridge had a steep gradient that caused problems for horses and in 1885 it was replaced by an iron swing bridge with gentler approach gradients. It was privately owned and collected tolls up until 1926, when it was purchased by the Borough of Poole and replaced with the third and present bridge which opened in 1927. It has seven time-tabled lifts a day and another ten unscheduled lifts for commercial boats and it is estimated to lift over 6,000 times a year.
Read more about this topic: Poole Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)