The Galton Bridge is a cast- iron ground in Smethwick, near Birmingham, in central England.

Opened
in 1829 as a road ground, the structure has been pedestrianised since the 1970s. It was erected by
Thomas Telford to carry a road across the new main line of the Birmingham Canal, which was
erected in a deep slice. The ground is 70 ft( 21 m) above the conduit, making it reputedly the loftiest
single- span bow ground in the world when it was erected, 26 ft(7.9 m) wide, and 150 ft( 46 m) long.
The iron factors were fabricated at the near Horseley Ironworks and assembled atop the masonry
abutments. The design includes ornamental beacon- posts andX-shaped bracing in the spandrels.

In the 1840s a road ground was erected from one of the abutments, with a alcazar in keeping with
the original. The Galton Bridge carried business for over 140 times until it was bypassed by a new
road, named Telford Way, in the 1970s, and now carries only climbers and cyclists. The ground is one
of six erected by Telford that partake common design features and the only one still standing
without revision. It passed minor form work in the 1980s, after which it was repainted from its
original dark into a colour scheme intended to enhance its features. It's maintained by the Canal and
River Trust and lends its name to the near Smethwick Galton Bridge road station. It's a grade I listed
structure.

Background

The original Birmingham Canal was erected from the late 1760s along a maundering route,
connecting Birmingham to Wolverhampton via the Black Country coalfields. One of the major
obstacles on the route was a patch of high ground at Smethwick, roughly 4 mi(6.4 km) west of
Birmingham. The masterminds had firstly planned to lair through, but discovered that the ground
conditions weren't suitable. therefore, the conduit was carried over the hill by a flight of cinches.( 1)(
2)

By the 1820s conduit business had grown tremendously and its prejudice was causing traffic. The
peak at Smethwick was short and framed by cinches at each end; as a result, it was common for long
ranges of boats to form at either end and fights frequently broke out among boat crews.
Advancements had been mooted for times, though the immediate catalyst for investment was a
offer for a road connecting Birmingham to Liverpool via Wolverhampton. The conduit possessors
consulted Thomas Telford, the most prestigious conduit mastermind of the day, and he designed a
new, straighter route( known as the New Main Line, the original conduit getting the Old Main Line)
which significantly reduced the length of the conduit.( 1)( 3) This scheme involved the excavation of
an artificial vale through the high ground in Smethwick. The ground was named after Samuel Tertius
Galton, a original businessman and major investor in the Birmingham Canal Company.( 4)( 5)

Three original roads were disassociated by the work, two of which were replaced with traditional
masonry islands, but Roebuck Lane was to cross the slice at its widest and deepest point. Like all the
islands on the new route, it demanded to gauge the conduit without gumming the raceway or the
roads. Hence, Telford considered a lighter structure was necessary.( 1)( 6) Telford was a colonist in
the use of cast iron and came celebrated for his islands and courses using the material, which he
discovered could be used to produce wider spans than had preliminarily been possible using slipup
or gravestone.( 4)( 7) Cast iron is brittle under pressure but strong under contraction; in ground
construction, it tended to be used in bow form. The world's first iron ground opened in Shropshire
fifty times before the Galton Bridge. masterminds including Telford spent the rest of the 18th
century and important of the 19th refining the construction styles.( 8)

Design
Telford's delineation for the Galton Bridge

The ground is a single span of 150 ft( 46 m), 26 ft( 8 m) wide and 70 ft( 20 m) above the conduit. It
consists of six cast- iron caricatures, each made of seven parts, bolted together. The ground is
supported by altitudinous slipup abutments erected into the vale sides. The sundeck plate is
supported byX-shaped bracing in the spandrels. Telford added a ornamental alcazar and beacon-
posts, also in cast iron. When erected, it was believed to be the longest ground over a conduit and
the loftiest single- span bow ground in the world; Telford wrote in his biographies" At the place of
topmost excavation is erected the largest conduit ground in the world; it's made of iron."( 4)( 9)( 10)
All the ironwork was cast by Horseley Ironworks at its conduit- side plant in near Tipton.( 4) The
name" Galton Bridge" is cast into the centre of the structure, below the alcazar, on both sides and"
Horseley Iron Works 1829" is cast below both spandrels on both sides.( 11)

In his biographies, published posthumously, Telford described the Galton Bridge as an"
extraordinary span". He explained that his decision to make such a high ground and to make it in
cast iron, also still a new material, was one of" safety, combined with frugality". A masonry ground
altitudinous enough to reach the top of the banks of the slice would bear substantial abutments
which risked the stonework getting doused and bulging during heavy rain, whereas an iron span was
lighter and needed lower abutments. Telford wrote that" the proportion of masonry is small, and
produces variety by its appearance of lightness, which agreeably strikes every onlooker."( 12)

The Galton Bridge is the last of a series of six cast- iron bow islands erected by Telford to a
analogous design. The first was at Bonar Bridge in the Scottish mounds, erected in 1810, which came
the prototype. Others include the Mythe Bridge at Tewkesbury, erected three times before the
Galton Bridge, and the Holt Fleet Bridge in Worcestershire, completed in 1828.( 4)( 13) The Galton
Bridge is the only one of the six surviving without after revision; Bonar Bridge was washed down in a
flood tide and Mythe and Holt Fleet islands were both strengthened with ultramodern
accoutrements in the 20th century. The others are Craigellachie Bridge( 1814) in north- eastern
Scotland, and Waterloo Bridge( 1816) in Betws- y- Coed, North Wales, both also strengthened in the
20th century.( 14)( 15)( 16)

The Galton Bridge firstly held commanding views of the vale on either side, but these are now
dammed. The ground is hemmed in between the Smethwick Station Bridge, a road ground erected in
the 1860s, on the west( Wolverhampton) side, and a partial infill of the slice where a 1970s road
scheme crosses the conduit on the east( Birmingham) side.( 4)( 17)