Wye Bridge and Beachley Viaduct, First Severn Crossing; the Western end of the bridge is in Wales
Motorway bridge over Wye estuary, and viaduct over Beachley peninsula.
1966 Designed by Freeman Fox and Partners in association with Mott, Hay and Anderson. Sir Percy Thomas was consulting architect.
The Wye Bridge is a 408 metre cable-stayed bridge crossing the River Wye designed for the M4 motorway. Two pylons in the central reservation with, originally, one cable each side of each pylon. This was probably the first post-WWII cable-stayed bridge in England and Wales.
Structure: Streamlined all-welded steel deck, steel pylons, concrete piers and foundations, steel cables. Overall length: 543 metres.
The bridge connects to the Beachley Viaduct, 744 metres long with streamlined all-welded steel deck supported on concrete piers.
Both bridge and viaduct form part of a group with the original Severn Road Bridge which has similar but not identical aerodynamically-shaped deck.
1987 The bridge was strengthened (engineers Flint and Neill): the pylons were increased in height and the cable arrangement changed, doubling the number of cables. This has changed the appearance of the cable-stayed bridge, but the general character has been maintained.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Historic England [1]