WARKWORTH NEW BRIDGE

"Across the river lies Warkworth, one of the most exciting small towns in Britain, graced with a medieval bridge and toll house, a castle of great distinction, a Norman church, and the Hermitage, cut out of the solid rocks on the river bank."

The Companion Guide To Northumbria. Edward Grierson. 1976.

The new bridge, just east of the old, was constructed in the mid-1960s as the old bridge had long been a serious bottleneck to traffic owing to the very restricted width (11 feet) and the gatehouse at the south end. The new bridge is of concrete and steel with concrete cutwaters and is wide enough (45 feet) for two lanes of traffic and carries the A1068 road between Amble (via Warkworth) to Alnwick. Girders came from Middlesbrough and the facing stones used on the retaining wall on the north side (seen in the two lower photographs) was partly constructed using stones reclaimed from the demolished Longhoughton railway station (closed 1962) a few miles north.

Good views of the old bridge and the river are obtained from this bridge, and the castle can be seen standing at the top of the hill. On the south side a road called The Butts leads past the Schoolhouse of 1736 and thence along the riverbank and uphill to the castle.

Three quarters of a mile downstream is a dam or weir, built to prevent fishing on the tidal stretch of the river.

Warkworth New Bridge

Constructed - 1965
Type - beam, concrete and steel, 2 span.
Position: Warkworth, Northumberland.
Grid Ref: NU 248 063

Warkworth New Bridge