The Orwell Bridge, Ipswich

The bridge opened to road traffic in 1982 and carries the A14 over the River Orwell, south of Ipswich. The main traffic using the bridge is for the Port of Felixstowe.
The main span of the bridge is 90 metres which, at the time of construction was the longest pre-stressed concrete span in use. The total length is 1287 metres from Wherstead on the west side to Nacton on the east side. The width is 24 metres with an air draft of 43 metres. Pilings were sunk 40 metres into the river bottom. The main contractor for the project was Stevin Construction bv, a Dutch company.
The bridge appears in the 1987 Cold War drama The Fourth Protocol, in which two RAF helicopters are shown flying under it.
More recently a pair of rare Peregrine Falcons have raised chicks in a nesting box placed high up on the bridge just under the roadway.
I had intended to blip the bridge yesterday but the lovely old barge came by and took centre stage, so as it was another lovely sunny afternoon I took a trip there after work and took some more photographs. Then I did some supermarket shopping before spending two hours cutting the copper beech hedge and clearing the cuttings up. The copper beech accounts for about a quarter of the hedges so in theory it should only take another six hours to finish cutting them all! Should keep me out of mischief for a little while.