News

Old Cast Iron Bridge

By ALEATHIA MARSHALLECK, STAR Writer

Wear and tear has reduced the magnificent Old Cast Iron Bridge to pedestrian traffic. - file

WHEN THE HOUSE of Assembly decided they needed to improve the road of communication between Spanish Town and Kingston, they commissioned the Coalbrookdale Company in London in 1801 to build a bridge across the mighty Rio Cobre River for £4000. The result, a cast iron bridge made of several small castings held together by wrought-iron tiers, spanning 86 feet 15 inches, the oldest of its kind in the western hemisphere.

The Old Cast Iron Bridge saw the transition from horse and buggy transport to vehicular traffic, until age and disrepair forced movement across its span to a pedestrian crawl. Today, the government and interest groups are planning to return the bridge to its former glory, when, as it was written in the Royal Gazette in 1802, " it will once again be said that "... its beauty and elegance has a fine effect on approaching the town, to which it forms a very great ornament."