Humber Bridge
The Humber Bridge is a single-span road suspension bridge near Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. When it opened to traffic on 24 June 1981, it was the longest of its type in the world; the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge surpassed it in 1998, and it became the fourteenth-longest by 2025.
The bridge spans the Humber, between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Hessle on the north bank, connecting the East Riding of Yorkshire with North Lincolnshire. Both sides of the bridge were in the non-metropolitan county of Humberside until its dissolution in 1996. The bridge can be seen for miles around, from as far as Patrington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and from out to sea miles off the coast. It is a Grade I listed building.
By 2006, the bridge carried an average of 120,000 vehicles per week. The toll was £3.00 each way for cars, which made it the most expensive toll crossing in the United Kingdom. In April 2012, the toll was halved to £1.50 each way after the UK government deferred £150 million from the bridge's outstanding debt.
History
Before the bridge, commuters crossed the Humber on the Humber Ferry from Corporation Pier at Hull and New Holland Pier at New Holland, Lincolnshire, or by road via the M62, M18 and M180 motorways, crossing, by way of the Ouse Bridge, the River Ouse near Goole. Until the mid-1970s the route south was via the single-carriageway A63 and the A614 where it met the busy A18 and crossed the Stainforth and Keadby Canal at Keadby Bridge, a swing bridge, which formed a bottleneck on the route, and on through Finningley and Bawtry, meeting the east–west A631.The journey was along straight single-carriageway roads across foggy moors interrupted by bottlenecks for most of the journey to Blyth, Nottinghamshire, where it met the A1, and the accident rate was high. Debates in Parliament were held on the low standard of the route across the windswept plains around Goole. It was not unexpected that under these conditions, a Humber Bridge, with connecting dual-carriageway approach roads and grade-separated junctions, would seem worthwhile. By the time the bridge opened, much of this inferior route had been transformed by dualling of the A63 and its bypasses, extending the M62 and the connecting of the M18 from Thorne to Wadworth. The obvious need for a Humber Bridge had been reduced by the late 1970s with the improvements of the motorway infrastructure in the region. Although welcome, these improvements detracted from the need for vehicles to cross a bridge from Hessle to Barton. The Humber Bridge was a victim of the success of the M62 before it opened. A hovercraft service, Minerva and Mercury, linked Hull Pier and Grimsby Docks from February to October 1969 but suffered relatively frequent breakdowns.
Act of Parliament
Plans for a bridge were drawn up in the 1930s when a team of engineers compiled a report on whether to bridge or tunnel the estuary. It was decided that a bridge would cost £1,750,000 over a tunnel which was costed at £7,200,000. Revised plans were unveiled in 1955, but work did not begin until 27 July 1972. The , was promoted by Kingston Upon Hull Corporation and established the Humber Bridge Board to manage and raise funds to build the bridge and buy the land required for the approach roads.1966 Kingston upon Hull North by-election
The allocation of funds proved impossible until the 1966 Kingston upon Hull North by-election. Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson prevailed upon his Minister of Transport Barbara Castle to sanction the building of the bridge. Dismay at the long wait for a crossing led to Christopher Rowe writing a protest song, "The Humber Bridge".Design
The consulting engineers for the project were Freeman Fox & Partners. Sir Ralph Freeman had produced the first ideas in 1927 and in the early 1930s the cost of the project was estimated at £1.725 million and that the bridge would be unlikely to recoup the construction or maintenance costs. In 1935 he had an idea for a suspension bridge for the Humber Tunnel Executive Committee. Sir Gilbert Roberts produced more ideas in 1955 for a bridge with a central span, costing £15 million, to be paid for by East Riding County Council and Lindsey County Council. When it became likely that a bridge would be constructed, Imperial College-educated Bernard Wex OBE produced the design in 1964 that was actually built. The bridge was built to last 120 years. The architect was R. E. Slater ARIBA. The administration building was designed by Parker & Rosner. The landscaping was designed by Prof Arnold Weddle. Wind tunnel testing took place at the National Maritime Institute at Teddington, and the road deck was designed for wind speeds up to, but storms featuring considerably lower wind speeds have been cited as grounds for emergency repairs in recent years.Construction
The main contractor for the steel superstructure was British Bridge Builders. The contractor for the concrete towers, anchorages and sub-structure was John Howard & Co Ltd of Chatham, Kent, which was later bought by Amec. Concrete was chosen for the towers, instead of steel, partly due to cost, but also to suit the landscape.Work began on the southern approach road in July 1972 by Clugston Construction of Scunthorpe. The approach road to the A1077 junction, by Costain Civil Engineering, began in September 1976. It included a span from the southern anchorage of seven pre-stressed concrete box sections and the A1077 junction, costing £4.25 million. Work on the bridge substructure began in March 1973. To reduce heat of hydration in the concrete, which produces calcium silicate hydrate from belite, as much as 60 per cent of the Portland cement was replaced with ground granulated blast-furnace slag. It took longer to build the southern anchorage due to a diaphragm wall design due to there not being enough shallow bedrock. The main southern approach roads from Barton to the M180 motorway junction at Barnetby were built in the late 1970s by Clugston Construction of Scunthorpe, opening in 1978.
The towers were constructed by slipforming and the north tower was completed by May 1974. The southern foundations were completed in September 1975, with the pier completed in March 1976, and the southern tower was completed by September 1976; the bridge had been planned to open in 1976. The northern tower and anchorage was built on solid chalk but the southern tower and anchorage were built on fissured Kimmeridge Clay, from the southern shore and built with a difficult caisson design. The subcontractor for the concrete was Tileman & Co. of Shipston-on-Stour, south Warwickshire.
Cable spinning took place between September 1977 and July 1979. Each cable weighs, with 37 strands of 404 lengths of cable. The cable on the northern span has four extra strands. Each cable can take a load of. The deck is of box girder form, the box sections around each. The first box sections were assembled in June 1975 and put into the main span on 9 November 1979. The toll buildings and north approach road were built by A. F. Budge of Retford, Nottinghamshire, costing £2.9 million. Work began on the administration building in November 1976. The toll system was manufactured by Plessey Controls of Poole, Dorset. Corrosion resistance on the steelwork was provided by Camrex Corrosion of Bellshill, North Lanarkshire. The road was laid by Tarmac Roadstone of Wolverhampton with mastic asphalt. In 2017, the bridge was designated a Grade I listed building.
A-frames
At road level the deck was fastened to the towers through four rocking A-frames, to allow for movement caused by the catenary supporting the deck from above deflecting with the weight of passing traffic, from thermal expansion, and from changes in wind loading. The devices catered for a maximum deflection of 2 metres. By 2011 it was noticed that the pivot-pin bearings carrying the frames had worn, allowing them to drop towards the support structure. Each frame was replaced by two new components: a vertical linkage to cater for longitudinal movement and a sliding bearing for lateral displacement.Opening
The bridge opened to traffic on 24 June 1981 at a final cost of £91 million. It was opened officially by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 July 1981, in a ceremony that included a prayer of dedication by the Archbishop of York and a fly-past by the Red Arrows.World record
With a centre span of and a total length of, the Humber Bridge was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world for 17 years, until the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge opened in Japan on 5 April 1998.Local benefits
The road-distance between Hull and Grimsby fell by nearly ; the town of Scunthorpe and environs were relieved of the passing traffic between Hull and Grimsby.Bridge statistics
The bridge's surface takes the form of a dual carriageway with a lower-level foot and cycle path on both sides. There is a permanent speed limit on the full length of the bridge.Each tower consists of a pair of hollow vertical concrete columns, each tall and tapering from square at the base to at the top. The bridge is designed to tolerate constant motion and bends more than in winds of. The towers, although vertical, are farther apart at the top than the bottom due to the curvature of the Earth.
The total length of the suspension cable is. The north tower is on the bank and has foundations down to. The south tower is in the water, and descends to as a consequence of the shifting sandbanks that make up the estuary.
The bridge held the record for the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years, from its opening in July 1981 until the opening of the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in April 1998. In June 2024, it became the thirteenth-longest, single-span suspension bridge. The central span, at, is the longest in Britain and in the Western Hemisphere. It remains the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world that can be crossed on foot or by bicycle.
The bridge is crossed twice during the annual Humber Bridge Half Marathon in June, and Hull Marathon in September.