Hull’s River Bridges: Ennerdale Link
Photographs by Rich & Lou Duffy-Howard
The most recent and northerly of Hull’s (road) River Bridges opened on April 3rd 1997 aimed to ease traffic and improve access to the docks in the east of the city, the original idea being a tunnel under the river.
The first plan in the gallery below is of the proposed River Hull Tunnel Scheme in 1989. The tunnel was to link a new road from the roundabout at the Beverley South Western By-pass (A1079) at the junction with the A1174 south of Dunswell to Roe Bank, West Bransholme, and then turn south to Ennerdale, hence the name. The tunnel was to be “constructed of reinforced concrete, cast within steel sheet pile walls with suitable measures taken to avoid flotation, with a box section 81 metres in length, with a 140 metre trough sections to both the east and west ends. The box and trough sections were planned to each have dual 7.3 metre carriageways, with 1.5 metre footways” Humberside County Council 1991.
Fortunately, if you like bridges, the works hit a spring, created a lagoon and the crossing resorted to an over the river construction of a pair of lifting road bascule bridges, similar to Stoneferry, the bridge decks each weighing 270 tonnes with the counterbalance arms 140 tonnes each.
You can click on any individual image in the gallery below and zoom in to see and read the details.
The River Hull Tunnel – Location Plan
Ennerdale Link – Bridge Site Plan
Tower Erection and Crane Placement
Plan of North and South Counterbalance Frames
South Elevation Bridge Deck and Counterbalance Frame
Tracey and Mark Toalster were a part of the team that helped to put the Open Bridges event together in 2017. We had to convince the emergency services that it would be safe to close all the bridges to road and foot traffic all at the same time on a Friday night at eight o’clock. So one Friday evening in 2017 for an hour we were all in teams counting blue lights that crossed the river to prove that it was possible. Mark and Tracey were the team at Stoneferry, Mark on the North Bridge and Tracey on the South. Here Mark remembers the building of Ennerdale Link.
“Me and Tracey were living on Fieldside Garth off Evergreen when they started on the Ennerdale Link. First off they tried to build a tunnel, tunnelling they hit a natural spring that made a lovely lagoon on the east side.
When it failed they decided they were going to build a fly-over but the people on the boats objected and one day, a Saturday, all the boats sailed down the river. You could see them all from our house and it looked just like the ships were sailing through fields.
When they brought the bridges cantilevers up the river they had to build the crane on site. I think it was supposed to be the biggest crane in Europe at the time. It took years to get to that stage but there were crowds watching as it went up and in the end the bridge was put together really quickly, one day it wasn’t there, the next day it was.
I used to walk my dog, Sam on the river bank and my next-door neighbour Glen’s dog, he was called Sam too. One day I was walking Glen’s dog Sam on the bank up at Ennerdale and he jumped in. The tide dragged Sam down the river and I had to run like hell down the river bank, it was 30 years ago and I could run then. The tide was quick but I managed to drag him out at Sutton Road Bridge”.
Mark Toalster 2025
The image – and link below – is courtesy of Steel Construction. By clicking on the image you can download their pdf file and read more about the Ennerdale Link bridges and construction in the article.
Ennerdale Link, hazy through the reeds from Ings Lane, Dunswell by Richard Duffy-Howard on the left and on the right taken from his boat on the river by Mal Scott in 2015.
Rich and Lou Duffy-Howard
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