"'For years, for generations, yea, for the greater part of a century the question has continually cropped up of how best to cross the Torrs, and it was evident that an enormous sum of money would be required to make such a road even when the difficulty of the erection had been solved. Most people in this district will be acquainted with the fact that Newtown, which is part and parcel of New Mills, is in the county of Chester, and is divided from New Mills proper by the deep and dangerous ravine called the Torrs. Newtown has of late years become a very important part of the district, and many of the old inhabitants of the locality, can very well remember the time when there was little or no population, in fact no Newtown at all, but there must now be at least two thousand inhabitants. Vehicles travelling from Newtown to New Mills or vice versa were compelled to go round Hyde Bank and High Street, while foot passengers were under the unpleasant necessity of venturing down a most dangerous road into the bottom of the ravine and up a sharp ascent on the other side. No wonder that the county and other authorities saw the difficulty attending the erection of such a viaduct, which was not resolved upon until some really practical and business like men represented the rate payers on the New Mills Local Board.'
Early in 1882, the Local Board engaged Mr J S Storey, the surveyor to the county of Derbyshire to prepare plans for a bridge across the Torrs, effectively joining the two settlements of New Mills, in Derbyshire and Newtown, in Cheshire. Mr Storey had considerable experience in the erection of bridges gained whilst employed by the Midland Railway.
On the 13th of November 1882, at a meeting of the Local Board, Mr Saxton, Landlord of the Crown Hotel, moved “that a bridge be erected across the Torrs and a new road made leading from the end of the Railway Hotel, across the said bridge, to come out at the Queens Arms Hotel, or at any other point or points, as may be decided upon by this Board, according to the plans and specifications prepared by Mr. J. S. Storey, and with such deviations as may be decided upon by this Board from time to time.” Mr. James Hibbert seconded the motion, which was carried by the narrowest majority.
Messers Johnson and Johnson, solicitors of Stockport and New Mills were engaged to procure the land on either side of the gorge from the various owners.
The Board invited tenders for the work, and that of Mr. M. W. Walmsley, of Crumpsall, near Manchester was accepted for the sum of £3,200, the engineer being Mr. J. S. Storey.
The work of putting in the foundations of the first pillar was commenced in May 1883 and the following month Mr. James Hibbert Esq. laid the memorial stone. The contractor had in the first instance intended to obtain the bulk of the stone required for the work from the Darley Dale Quarries, but upon breaking into the rock alongside Schofield’s road, which is adjacent to the bridge, the stone was found to be of such superior quality that the idea was abandoned and almost the whole of the rock used in the structure was quarried on the spot.
The structure, which is composed of four, arches each of 41 feet square, rests upon three pillars and an abutment built in the rock on the north and south side. From the bed of the river Goyt to the top of the parapet wall is 94 feet. The bridge itself is sixty yards in length and the width is thirty feet. The parapet wall is five feet above the footpath. The roadway from the Railway Hotel to the Queens Arms Hotel is 308 yards and the width of the said road 36 feet. The cost of the roadway and the bridge in round numbers was £4,400. The gradient of the roadway is one in seventeen and a half."
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