Countess Wear Canal Swing and Bascule Bridges

A hundred and fifty metres from the Countess Wear Bridge, these parallel swing and bascule bridges take the A379 across the Exeter Canal. They are operated from a control room that looks similar to a bridge on a ship. They are designed to be opened to allow shipping to pass up and down the canal. Rarely raised nor swung now, because no commercial shipping uses the canal and tall yachts cannot pass under the M5 road bridge a little down stream. The bridges may not often open for water bourne traffic, but they are kept busy with 36,000 vehicles a day passing over them along the A379.

The Countess Wear swing and bascules bridges

The southern swing bridge dates from 1936 and is an early example of a steel plate riveted girder bridge. The canal has had a series of swing bridges prior to this one, including two by James Green, the County Surveyor in 1821 and 1831.

The northern bascule bridge was built in 1972, parallel to the swing bridge. It was built by a Sheffield company who used aluminium for part of the structure, to reduce weight. The lifting section is 17.28m long with a carriageway width of 6.7m and a footway on the outside edge of the parapet of 2m.

Major remedial work has been carried out on the two bridges from September 2006 to May 2007 causing long traffic delays in a contraflow system. The bascule bridge was covered for many weeks to allow repair work to take place in the dry.

A plaque at the bridges states:

"In May 1944, these bridges played an important part in the preparations for D-Day. They were used over a period of three days and nights, for rehearsals of the famous and crucial glider borne attack on the bridge over the Canal de Caen (Pegasus Bridge) and the River Orne (Horsa Bridge), by the Second Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on the night 5/6 June 1944."

The plaque was unveiled on 20th July 1994 by Colonel D J Wood, M.B.E., late Oxf Bucks, President, 87 Exeter Branch Normandy Veterans Association.

Source: The photo of the bridges open, courtesy of Alan Mazonowiez. © 2005 David Cornforth - not to be used without permission.