This week, Roy decided he wanted to spend some time up around the Barrington Tops area. Of course, we didn't actually have time to make the trip, so he decided to take a trip down memory lane instead and look at the photos we took last time we were there. While he was looking at the photos, he remembered that he had not shown his friends the extraordinary bridge he discovered while he was in the area. Monkerai Bridge is an amazing old bridge, and while it is closed to traffic, it is well worth a look.
If you would like to visit Monkerai Bridge, it is located on Weismantels-Dingadee Road. To get there, turn off Bucketts Way onto Monkerai Road and keep driving. The road is unsealed, but was a good dirt road when Roy visited. You cannot cross the bridge by car (or you couldn't when Roy was there), but pull over beside the road and have a bit of a walk. The bridge looks a little wobbly and decrepit, but Roy didn't fall in the river and it does seem to be carefully maintained because it is so historically signficant. When Roy visited, there were no signs telling you not to walk across the bridge, but if there are now, make sure you obey them, just in case!
Monkerai Bridge, though today it looks a little sad, is one of the most historically significant bridges in NSW. It is not only the second oldest timber truss bridge in NSW, it is the best remaining example of a Public Works Department bridge. As far as Roy can discover, there is a little dispute about exactly when the bridge was built, with some saying it was completed in 1877 and others saying 1882. Either way, it was built to provide a road link between the towns of Dungog and Stroud, and Dungog and Gloucester, all important agricultural centres at the time. It is likely that the river had been crossed here before the bridge was opened, because the water is quite shallow, but at times of flood it would have been very difficult. A bridge was needed!
Many of the very old bridges in Australia were built using stone, particularly sandstone which was available in and around the early centres of settlement surrounding the Sydney basin. As settlement spread though the need for other building materials became evident. In 1861 the Government in NSW ordered that, wherever possible, local skills and materials should be used in building bridges. Imported materials, like iron, were to be kept to an absolute minimum. This was to reduce the costs of building bridges. If you had stone locally available, you might be able to use it, but for those who did not have this resource, wood was the best alternative. Over the next 60 years, wood was the most commonly used material in bridge building. There were several designs used for wooden bridges, which often used trusses to support them (hence they are known as Timber Truss Bridges), but the first was designed in 1861 by the NSW Commissioner of Roads, William Bennet. This style of bridge became known as the Public Works Department truss bridge, and Monkerai Bridge is the best surviving example of this first stage of truss bridge development. Monkerai Bridge has six spans (three approach spans, and three truss spans), and is 98.4 metres long. If you would like to learn more about Monkerai Bridge, click here. You can also watch a video showing some of the maintenance work on the bridge by clicking here.