Celebrations As Trent Bridge Reaches 150 Year Milestone

The name Trent Bridge is usually associated with the famous cricket ground, home of Nottinghamshire and frequent venue of international matches.

The name Trent Bridge is usually associated with the famous cricket ground, home of Nottinghamshire and frequent venue of international matches. But the ground takes its name from the actual Tent Bridge, the latest incarnation of which is 150 not out.

While a bridge cannot raise a bat in celebration, West Bridgford Wire has published a montage of photos on the famous crossing, which carries the A60 across the river from Nottingham into West Bridgford.

There has actually been a bridge on the site for over a thousand years, but the modern version was opened on July 25th 1871. For a time the new and old bridges stood side-by-side, with riverside arches of the old structure still on display now.

Originally, the Victorian bridge was made entirely of stone, but it was widened in the 1920s with the installation of the three cast iron and steel arches that are still in place today. It still has stone and brick abutments and piers.

This combination has created a mixture of different maintenance challenges down the years when it has come to bridge repairs, due to the different effects of weather, water and heat on these substances. As well as all the normal weathers brought by the four seasons, the river has frozen over on occasion, creating the potential for pressure from ice.

Trent Bridge has also had to deal with accidents, not least in 2002 when it was struck by the Nottingham Princess riverboat at a time when it was being repainted and scaffolding was in place. However, the presence of the scaffolding on which the boat was caught meant it was the vessel, rather than the bridge, that suffered significant damage.

Any work carried out on the bridge, from painting to repairs, will have to maintain the appearance and the structure as it has always been, since the bridge has been Grade II listed since 1972.

At present the bridge is divided between Nottingham and the Borough of Rushcliffe, with the boundary running along the Trent. However, until 1952 the bridge was entirely in the city, as a small sliver of land on the south side of the river was within the Nottingham boundary, including the adjacent City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest Football Club, but not the cricket ground.

While boundaries may move, the bridge has stood firm through summers and winters, floods and ice, boat crashes and a myriad of vehicles (35,000 a day on average) and people crossing it, either visiting the sports grounds on either side of the river (Notts County play at Meadow Lane on the Nottingham side) or heading to and from the city centre.

Next month, users will include thousands heading to the cricket ground that shares the name to see England play India in a Test match, a format of the sport that had not even been invented when the modern bridge was built. Many will not realise how old it is, or the fact that the work of bridge maintenance crews down the years means it has barely changed in appearance in all that time.