40 Angus Young – North Bridge

There’s something about a river and its bridges which fascinates me. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in Gateshead and would gaze in awe at the trendy Five Bridges Hotel every time we passed it on the bus heading for Newcastle on the other side of the Tyne.

Opened in 1966, the hotel owed its name to the number of bridges spanning the Tyne. More recently, two more have been added and they all stand within 1.5km of each other. Sadly, the hotel is no more and while the bridges over the River Hull might not be as spectacular as the Tyne Bridge or the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, each one still has a charm all of its own.

My favourite is North Bridge, mainly because of this photograph which might or might not have been taken on the day it was officially opened on 10th August 1931.

There’s so much going on in the photograph that it’s worth a long, lingering look.

The lady in the foreground immediately grabs your attention. If it is August, she’s dressed for a different season. Perhaps it was a bit chilly.

I love the fact she seems detached from events behind her and I’ve often wondered if she’s deliberately crossing the road at that very moment under the direction of the unseen photographer. Either way, she appears to be in a hurry.

Interestingly, nearly everyone else in the image is male and looking away from the camera and across the bridge towards the city centre. I can only spot one other woman, partially hidden by the Hedon Road tram.

On the other Holderness Road tram, the conductor nervously looks up to see whether the vehicle is safely passing under the bridge. Perhaps it was the first to attempt the crossing. The car and bus only add to the drama and underline the reason why the bridge was built in the first place, replacing a previous quite elegant structure sadly unable to cope with the growth in motorised transport.

Like its predecessor, it was designed to allow for river traffic to pass unhindered. At the time of the opening in 1931, it was estimated that 4,000 vessels a month would sail underneath.

The flow of road  traffic across it was originally controlled by chains rather than the automatic barriers in use today. While there’s no sight of the river in the photograph I like the curves of the tram lines leading to and from the bridge. To prevent trams ploughing through the chains when the bridge was being raised, the power was automatically cut within 50 feet of the crossing. In the event of a total power failure on the bridge’s lifting mechanism, its design also allowed the deck to be raised or lowered by hand. It was a job for eight men and the process took around 80 minutes.

Whether that feat could be achieved today remains unclear. Somehow I doubt it would even be attempted.

Angus Young

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