Pulteney Bridge - Bath, Somerset
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SMacB
N 51° 22.975 W 002° 21.487
30U E 544668 N 5692603
Pulteney Bridge, completed in 1773, is a bridge that crosses the River Avon. The bridge was designed by Robert Adam, and is one of only four bridges in the world with shops across the full span on both sides.
Waymark Code: WMWM6B
Location: South West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/17/2017
Views: 5
"In 1768 William Johnstone Pulteney obtained a private Act of Parliament permitting him, subject to the consent of the Bath Corporation, to construct a bridge connecting Bath with the Bathwick estate, which had been brought to him by his marriage to Frances Pulteney. The bridge replaced the Bathwick ferry.
The plaque is fixed the river side of the south-western pavilion, which was rebuilt in 1902-3 when Grand Parade was constructed. The pavilion replaced three of the shops on the bridge as a result of which the south side of the bridge is no longer symmetric about its centre."
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"One of only four bridges in the world to have shops across its full span on both sides, the structure was designed by Robert Adam; his original drawings are preserved in the Sir John Soane's Museum in London.
The bridge is named after Frances Pulteney, wife of William Johnstone. He was a wealthy Scottish lawyer and Member of Parliament. Frances was the third daughter of MP and government official Daniel Pulteney (1684–1731) and first cousin once removed of William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath. She inherited the Earl's substantial fortune and estates close to Bath in Somerset after his death in 1764 and that of his younger brother and heir in 1767, and the Johnstones changed their surname to Pulteney. The rural Bathwick estate, which Frances and William inherited in 1767, was across the river from the city and could only be reached by ferry. William made plans to create a new town, which would become a suburb to the historic city of Bath, but first he needed a better river crossing. The work of the Pulteneys is memorialised by Great Pulteney Street in Bathwick, and Henrietta Street and Laura Place, named after their daughter Henrietta Laura Johnstone.
Initial plans for the bridge were drawn up by Thomas Paty, who estimated it would cost £4,569 to build, but that did not include the shops. A second estimate of £2,389 was obtained from local builders John Lowther and Richard Reed; it included two shops at each end of the bridge, but work did not begin before winter weather made construction of the pillars impossible. In 1770 the brothers Robert and James Adam, who were working on designs for the new town at Bathwick, adapted Paty's original design. Robert Adam envisaged an elegant structure lined with shops, similar to the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte di Rialto he would likely have seen when he visited Florence and Venice. Adam's design more closely followed Andrea Palladio's rejected design for the Rialto. The revised bridge was 15 metres (50 ft) wide, rather than the 9.1 metres (30 ft) width envisaged by Paty, which overcame the objections of the local council about the bridge being too narrow.
Construction started in 1770 and was completed by 1774 at a cost of £11,000. The builders for the lower part of the bridge were local masons Reed and Lowther; the shops were constructed by Singers and Lankeshere."
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