Millennium Lifting Bridge - Douglas, Isle of Man - Moving Bridges on Waymarking.com

The Millennium Lifting marks the entrance to the Douglas Harbour Marina and was named for the Millennium as it opened in 2000 it spans the River Dhoo and is the lower of the two crossings of the Douglas Harbour.

The Millennium Lifting Bridge was part of a scheme to create a marina in the inner harbour and part of the mechanism is designed retain water in the marina.

The lifting bridge replaced a footbridge opened 1979 which had replaced an earlier swing bridge which had been commissioned by the Harbour Commissioners and designed by Sir William Armstrong and Co. it opened in 1896 and could be swung in less than a minute.

The hydraulic mechanism of the old swing bridge was housed in the tower which can be seen today directly south of the new bridge.

In 1959 the Harbour Board decided that the old swing bridge should be closed to vehicular traffic and be restricted to pedestrian use only.

The lifting bridge opened in 200O, as the first stage of the scheme to create the marina in the inner harbour. The full scheme was opened by Tony Brown, the Island’s Minister at the Department Transport on 19th October 2001.

‘The structure, completed in 1999, has a lifting bridge with overhead counterweight to span the northern half of the entrance to the harbour, allowing 12m wide access for vessels. The £2million scheme also impounds water by means of a rising sill flap under the lifting bridge and a fixed weir under the remaining section, thus enabling the siting of floating pontoons to create a yacht haven in the inner harbour.’ (visit link)

The bridge operating machine is to the north of the bridge and it is in this direction which the bridge roadbed lifts as shown in the picture at the following link: (visit link)

Source: 'Then and Now around the Isle of Man' by Miles Cowsill, Charles Guard and Steve Jackson (ISBN: 978-1-907945-17-5)
(visit link)

Bridge Type: Other Type of Moving Bridge Pedestrian Traffic: yes Bicycle Traffic: yes Vehicular Traffic: yes Railway Traffic: no Built: Not listed Span: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Take a picture of the bridge and record the exact coordinates where the picture was taken.

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