A hanging bridge connects Tintagel Castle, located on Cornwall's rugged north coast. The ruins are one of the most spectacular historic sites in Britain. However, the route to the castle was a challenge for visitors to the high town for a long time. Over a hundred steps led to the ruins on the cliffs. However, the architects commissioned found a solution by creating a...newly built bridgeuse as a pedestrian bridge.
Sea view and hanging bridge
Architectural firm William Matthews Associates and Ney & Partners created a built-in suspended bridge of two 30-meter-high cantilevered spans that meet off-center. Tintagel Castle Bridge is a footbridge over a 58 meter high slope between two cliffs, reconnecting two sides of a medieval ruin. All twelve steel sections of the new footbridge have been installed on the North Cornish site. The fine-tuning required for the alignment of the bridge has now been completed. Both the castle and the hanging bridge have been open to the public since Sunday, August 11, 2019. For the first time, organizers have introduced season tickets for the castle, which can be booked in advance on the website. However, it is recommended to reserve in advance to ensure access at the desired time.
A historic walkway
Work began in October on a landmark project to reconnect Tintagel's divided landscape. In the Middle Ages, residents walked from one side of the site to the other across a narrow land bridge as high as the cliffs. However, the crossing disappeared between the 14th and 17th centuries and the castle was separated by a natural chasm. The new suspension bridge restores the original route and offers visitors the opportunity to experience the castle as its medieval residents once did.
The right design
The responsible authority announced a competition in 2015 to find the best team for theDesign of the new bridgeto find. The architects mentioned above created the winning concept. The aim was to find a hanging bridge tailored specifically to Tintagel Castle that would blend into the iconic coastal landscape. The design has two arms that touch each other and are 40 mm apart in the middle. The gap represents the transition from the mainland to the island, and from the present to the past. The suspension bridge structure is paved with slate and has stainless steel parapets along its length. The bridge railings are so beautifully designed that they disappear into the sky from a distance. The architects provided a solution that did not require temporary formwork such as scaffolding during the construction process.
The construction process
The local authorities closed Tintagel Castle in October 2018 due to the construction of the new bridge. They also installed a cable crane on site, which the contractor could use to attach the equipment and build the foundations. For this reason, scaffolding was no longer required. Prior to this work, the architects carried out a series of geotechnical investigations to ensure that the subsoil could support this. At the same time that the cable crane was in operation, work to fabricate the bridge's steel profiles began off-site. These prefabricated steel profiles were transported to Tintagel Castle and placed into position. In this way, the team restored the historical connection between the mainland and the island little by little.
As mentioned above, the support arms are made primarily of steel and local slate from the Delabole quarry. This is England's oldest working quarry, oriented vertically for the path. The handrails are made of oak. The footpaths on both sides are made of slate and are quite rustic. However, the architects initially found that a very rustic finish to the bridge was not really appropriate. So they took the same material but used it in a very subtle and more modern way. The remote clifftop location, strong winds on the site and development restrictions imposed by historical and environmental significance made reconnecting the two halves of the castle a real challenge.
Proper construction technology
The contractor built the two booms in Devon over a period of a year and transported them to Cornwall in 5 tonne pieces. The engineers used a special cable crane to position each section as it was screwed together. For this reason, the assembly process only took two weeks. To anchor each side to the cliff, specialists used ropes to hang over the edge and drill supports into the rock face. It is a widely used method of stabilizing cliffs, as you can see with elevated roads in the Alps. So it's an existing technology, but quite unusual in the UK.
An approaching storm delayed the bridge's official opening because the exposed island is unsafe in extreme winds. However, when visitors cross it, they can walk over a natural chasm that has not been crossed like this for 500 years. Previously, visitors to the English Heritage site had to climb steep steps and queue for a much smaller footbridge at the base of the cliff. According to legend, it is the place where King Arthur was received.
