Bridge Building
The most famous bridge ever constructed by a Teesside company was Dorman Long's Sydney Harbour Bridge of 1932. This was partly modelled on the 1928 Tyne Bridge, a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The greatest example of Dorman Long's work in Teesside itself is the single span Newport Lifting Bridge (a Grade II Listed Building). Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first vertical lift bridge. With a lifting span of 270 feet (82 m) long by 66 feet (20 m) wide, it is constructed from 8000 tons of Teesside steel and 28,000 tons of concrete with towers 182 feet (55 m) high. The electrically operated lifting mechanism allowed the road to be lifted 100 feet (30 m) in one and a half minutes by means of ropes passing through sheaves in the four corner towers. Newport Bridge is no longer raised or lowered; it is a permanent road crossing the river Tees.
The following is a list of some of the bridges built by the Dorman Long: it is not fully comprehensive.
| Bridge | Location | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Omdurman Bridge | White Nile, Sudan | 1926 | Total length 2,012 feet (613 m), 7 fixed spans, one swing span, 3700 tons |
| Dessouk Bridge | Lower Nile, Egypt | 1927 | Total length 2,010 feet (610 m), 10 spans including 194 feet (59 m) swing span, 3800 tons |
| Limpopo Bridge | South Africa | 1927 | Total length 1,515 feet (462 m), 1876 tons |
| Tyne Bridge | Newcastle, England | 1928 | Total length 1,254 feet (382 m), approximately 8,000 tons, (Road) |
| Sydney Harbour Bridge | Sydney, Australia | 1932 | Total length 3,770 feet (1,150 m), total weight of fabricated steelwork 51000, weight of steel in the arch 38000 tons |
| Lambeth Bridge | London, England | 1932 | Total length 776 ft (237 m), 5 spans, 4620 tons,(Road) |
| Memorial Bridge, Bangkok | Thailand | 1932 | Total length 755 feet (230 m), 1100 tons, (Road) |
| Khedive Ismail Bridge | Cairo, Egypt | 1933 | Total length 1,250 feet (380 m), 3000 tons |
| Newport bridge | Middlesbrough | 1934 | The central lifting span is 270 feet (82m) long and 66 feet (20m) wide, weighing 5400 tons (6993 metric tonnes); the towers are 182 feet (55m) high. The total weight is 8,000 tons. |
| Birchenough Bridge | Zimbabwe | 1935 | 1242 tons. |
| Storstrøm Bridge | Denmark | 1937 | Total length 10,535 feet (3,211 m), 21000 tons, (Railways) |
| Chien Tang River Bridge | China | 1937 | Total length 3,840 feet (1,170 m), 16 equal spans, 4135 tons, (Railway and Road) |
| Silver Jubilee Bridge | Runcorn and Widnes, England | 1961 | Total length 1,582 feet (482 m), (Road) |
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Famous quotes containing the words bridge and/or building:
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“A building is akin to dogma; it is insolent, like dogma. Whether or no it is permanent, it claims permanence, like a dogma. People ask why we have no typical architecture of the modern world, like impressionism in painting. Surely it is obviously because we have not enough dogmas; we cannot bear to see anything in the sky that is solid and enduring, anything in the sky that does not change like the clouds of the sky.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)