Wednesday 1 February - bridgemaking day (SG)

By the time I arrived at Northbridge Street, around mid-morning, one of the refurbished bridge spans had already been placed by contractors Coussens at bridge No 5, and work was under way on assembling walkways to the other three spans. Through the day these were loaded in turn onto a flatbed lorry and driven the fairly short distance along the temporary road laid beside the footpath, and lifted carefully onto the abutments of bridges 4, 2 and 3, in that order.  At bridge 2 the old unrefurbished span which had been placed more than 10 years ago was removed so that a refurbished one with walkway could take its place. 

 This photo shows bridge span 2 being lowered into place (SG).  

The weather was fine, though the wind was cold. The ground was dry and on only one occasion did the contractors' flatbed lorry look like getting stuck at the assembly area until rescued by their Scania. There were a few dog-walkers and onlookers. Geoff and I managed to get about 100 photos which have been uploaded to the RVR archive, and many now made public.  

All in all a most enjoyable and exciting, well-organised day.  At long last, we saw four of the five bridges on the land we control at Robertsbridge now virtually completed after months of careful planning and preparation by the project team. All that remains is the completion of Bridge No 1, followed at some point by tracklaying activities and the inevitable fencing presumably.     (SG)