Glenmona Bridge

Glenmona Bridge is a riveted wrought iron lattice-girder deck-truss road bridge on the old route between the Ararat and central goldfields over the Bet Bet Creek at Bung Bong, Victoria.

Glenmona Bridge
Glenmona Bridge in 2017
Coordinates37°06.203862′S 143°33.679002′E
CarriesThe old Pyrenees Highway alignment
CrossesBet Bet Creek
LocaleBung Bong, Victoria, Australia
Characteristics
DesignWrought Iron continuous lattice-girder deck-truss
Total length46.6 metres (152 ft 11 in)
Width6.1 metres (20 ft 0 in)
Longest span26 metres (85 ft 4 in)[1]
History
Opened1871
Location

History

The bridge was built in 1871 to replace an 1857 timber bridge that was destroyed in the statewide floods of 1870. Those super-floods devastated much of the state's road network, and resulted in a redesign of many river and creek crossings, to raise the roads above flood levels not seen before.[2]

The continuous trusses are 46.6 metres long and the piers are quite tall at 10.1 metres high.[3] It is the third-oldest of its type in Victoria. Its location is directly south of the new bridge over the Bet Bet on the Pyrenees Highway.[4]

The damage to the timber decking after the 1985 fire

The timber deck and handrails were destroyed in a bushfire on 14 January 1985.[4]

Similar bridge

Whereas the huge lattice truss girders of the Redesdale Bridge in Redesdale, Victoria, had been imported from England in 1859, colonial engineering works had, in the meantime, developed to service reef and deep lead mining, and were quite capable of supplying such products for the Glenmona bridge, by 1870.[5]

Significance

The bridge is registered on the Victorian Heritage Council database[5] and with the National Trust of Australia.[3] and the Shire of Pyrenees heritage overlay.[6]

The Pyrenees Shire Council has documented the Glenmona Park homestead on Glenmona Road, Bung Bong, at the Bet Bet Creek, in the Avoca Heritage Study: 1864 - 1994 - Volume 3.[7]

See also

References
  1. National Trust Register citation B7055
  2. "The Flood". Avoca Mail. 10 September 1870. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  3. http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/places/result_detail/67724 National Trust Database, Glenmona Bridge
  4. "Bet Bet Creek Road Bridge (Place ID 16055)". Australian Heritage Database. Australian Government.
  5. "Glenmona Bridge". 3 September 1999.
  6. Shire of Pyrenees heritage overlay HO49
  7. "Avoca Heritage Study: 1864 - 1994, Volume 3". Pyrenees Shire Council. February 1995. p. 149. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2017.


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