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Date: late 1870s, 1900 Type: Bridge Style: Industrial Archaeology : Utilitarian Status: Extant   Click to view large map Coordinates: 29°34'16.26" S 24°04'22.02" E Alt: 1057m

See more photographs Old wagon bridge. The bridge was originally constructed and erected by the firm Messrs Westwood, Baillie and Co, also responsible for the Road Bridge over the Great Kei River. In 1899, in the early phase of the Anglo-Boer (South African) War, the central span was destroyed by the Imperial authorities for strategic reasons. As the War progressed and the tides turned in favour of the British an order for the new span was placed with Messrs Joseph Westwood and Co Limited, of Millwall, England. The span is 108 ft. [32,4m] long from centre to centre of bearings, the girders being of the Warren pin-connected type, and the weight complete about 80 tons. The roadway is carried on steel troughing on the top of the girder. The whole of the main connecting-pins were manufacture within five days. The castings (including the patterns) for pressing the various special sections of plates, were made, and the plates pressed and finished in ten days. William Beardmore, of Parkhead Forge, Glasgow (Chairman of Messrs. Westwood and Co.), rolled the plates within six hours of the receipt of the specification. The portion consigned by rail from Glasgow was three days longer in reaching London than was the portion forwarded via Grangemouth per steamer, and, but for this delay, the span would have been completed in less than a fortnight. The manufacturing was carried out under the supervision of Sir Benjamin Baker, engineer to the Agent-General for the Cape. The rapidity with which the span was manufactured, spurred on by the sense of patriotism and urgency of the matter in the War effort, was a record for bridge-building in its day, no span of similar construction having ever been made in such a short time. (Source Grace's Guide).