It‘s the winter of 1962/3 and work is starting, driving piles for a new concrete bridge that will span the river at Earith. This has always been an important crossing and we know there was a bridge here in 1286 because orders were issued to repair it! Of course, the waterways have changed much as fen drainage was completed but there has always been a bridge. The picture shows the last days of the old iron bridge that was about 100 years old at the time and quite narrow. The iron bridge before this had snapped when a traction engine went over it and the new one was tested by driving the same engine over it successfully. The new bridge, that remains today, was opened in April 1963. You can still see where the road went down to the old bridge on the Earith side of the current bridge.
September 2020
