19th century Newhall Road Bridge gets 21st century makeover

A Sheffield bridge with a history dating back to the 17th century has been strengthened, repaired and restored by Amey. Newhall Road bridge over the River Don is one of 240 road bridges and culverts in Sheffield to be given a new lease of life thanks to investment linked to Sheffield City’s €2.5 billion Streets Ahead highway maintenance contract.
April 10, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
1889 and still going: Newhall Road Bridge over the River Don in Sheffield, England
A Sheffield bridge with a history dating back to the 17th century has been strengthened, repaired and restored by 2958 Amey.


Newhall Road bridge over the River Don is one of 240 road bridges and culverts in Sheffield to be given a new lease of life thanks to investment linked to Sheffield City’s €2.5 billion Streets Ahead highway maintenance contract.

The current steel structure was built around 1889 close to the location of the giant Hecla Works where manganese steel was developed. But the crossing’s history can be traced back several centuries to a time when it was a rural bridge for a packhouse, a warehouse used for curing tobacco or storing produce.

The five-month scheme was carried out Amey and tackled areas of corrosion to some of the steel structural elements as well as overall strengthening, explained Christopher Hampson, Amey structures manager.

“Although the bridge was perfectly functional, parts of the original steel trusses and a steel troughing underneath were corroded, partly as a result of its environment and road salts over the years.

“We carried out a large number of repairs to the steelwork. A number of the original rivets were replaced with new bolts, a new concrete slab was cast on the deck and it was fully resurfaced. The bridge was completely re-painted and the stonework restored.


“It was time consuming work because it is only once you have started that you discover extra areas that require attention. Now completed, the life of the bridge has been extended by many years,” said Hampson.

The government-backed Streets Ahead programme will help Sheffield improve roads, footpaths, street lighting and other highways infrastructure.

Amey will have strengthened 40 road bridges including other historic bridges that will allow the lifting of weight restrictions. With the main five-year core investment programme almost completed, Amey will carry out regular routine and preventative maintenance to all the city’s highway structures over the next 20 years.

Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • PPRS Nice 2018: maintenance moves mountains
    June 22, 2018
    Strategic maintenance was a major theme at the second Pavement Preservation and Recycling Summit in Nice, France. The world is changing, mobility is changing and so roads must change and adapt for the future.” With this brief statement, Jacques Tavernier opened the second PPRS Summit. “At the same time there is a growing awareness of poor or non-existent maintenance for highways. The question for this conference is how to adapt road maintenance in the face of this challenge,” said Tavernier, in his role as
    Read More
  • Kenya’s bridge maintenance woes persist
    May 10, 2018
    Many of Kenya’s bridges are in poor condition writes Shem Oirere. The lack of programmed maintenance of bridges in Kenya continues to undermine the structural integrity of the infrastructure and compromising their general usage safety despite the existence of approved measures to protect them from falling into a state of disrepair. Experts think that both the absence of a maintenance component in bridge construction contracts, especially for those built one or two decades ago, and a weak maintenance supervi
    Read More
  • Rapid replacement of multiple bridges – the plan
    December 14, 2017
    The US State of Pennsylvania is saving itself $220 million over 10 years on a programme to replace 558 bridges with an unusual public private partnership approach - Kristina Smith writes It is called the Rapid Bridge Replacement Programme with good reason. Pennsylvania’s Department of Transport, PennDOT, wants to see no less than 558 structurally deficient bridges replaced with newly designed and constructed ones, all within four years. Using traditional forms of procurement this programme would be like
    Read More
  • Europe closes in on the crossings
    September 27, 2017
    The Mersey Gateway bridge project off England’s west coast passed a milestone recently with the first joining of two of the deck sections. The key segments, as the sections are called, link the north approach viaduct to the north pylon deck span and are the first of four deck-joins scheduled for this summer. In total, there are five sections of bridge deck and approach roads that need to be joined.
    Read More

Highlighted Content