Cleveland Bridge - History

History

Cleveland Bridge was built in 1826 by William Hazledine (Coalbrookdale Ironworks) with Henry Goodridge as the architect, on the site of a Roman ferry crossing. Named after the 3rd Duke of Cleveland, it spans the River Avon at Bathwick, and enabled further development of Georgian Bath to take place on the south side of the river. It was designed by architect Henry Goodridge to take the traffic of his day, horse drawn vehicles and pedestrians, and was constructed using the warm golden Bath Stone and an elegant cast iron arched span.

A toll house was required to charge users of the bridge for the privilege of crossing. Rather than building merely one, Goodridge decided to install four — one on each corner — in order to maintain the absolute symmetry of his elegant neoclassical design. He provided each of these lodges with columns fronting onto the bridge, giving them the appearance of small ancient temples. This is what still gives the bridge its unique appearance today. Only one of the four (Number 1 next to St John's Road) was actually used as a toll house; the rest were always let to private tenants as small dwellings or shops. Given the small size of these dwellings (one room upstairs, two on the middle floor and one that would have flooded each winter in the basement) it seems extraordinary that the 1891 UK census clearly records a family of three people and two lodgers living in one of the lodges.

The bridge was constructed using funds subscribed by numerous local wealthy citizens to a specially formed Bathwick Bridge Company with a view to investors making a return on investment through the toll charges. In order to establish the bridge and the company an Act of Parliament was required and, in a move which would later prove the undoing of the company, the level of the toll was fixed at one penny. Unfortunately for the shareholders of the Bathwick Bridge Company, inflation took hold during the 19th century and, by the early 20th century, a one penny toll was not worth much. By the 1920s, the revenues from tolls no longer covered the costs of operating and maintaining the bridge.

The Bath Corporation Act of 1925 allowed the City Council to take over the bridge from the now bankrupt Bathwick Bridge Company. To much celebration, it was freed it from tolls for all traffic on 20 June 1927 and extensively restored during 1928 and 1929. Cleveland Bridge is still free to use today, although the next bridge upstream at Bathampton is one of the UK's few remaining privately owned toll bridges.

After the Second World War, a shortage of cash and materials and a general lack of interest in Bath's architecture meant that the fabric of the bridge was neglected. By the 1980s, three out of four of the lodges were derelict and unfit for human habitation. Concerned at the neglect of this unique structure by its owners, Bath and North East Somerset Council, a group of local individuals formed a charity (the Bath Historical Buildings Trust) to take a very long lease on three of the lodges and to restore them so that they could once again become homes for people. This work is almost complete.