Highway Star
Posted on 15th September 2013
A few years ago I posted about whether the M6 viaduct over the Gravelly Hill area of Birmingham, was the longest bridge in the UK. In February 2012, someone added a page to Wikipedia for the bridge, which appears to be called the Bromford Viaduct. The Wikipedia page references the same page I found from the Motorway Archive, but nowhere on that page did it reference the name. So now I had two questions:
- Is the Bromford Viaduct its official name?
- Is this still the longest bridge in the UK?
Regards the name, it would seem that the proposals for HS2 refer to it as the M6 Bromford Viaduct. After some further searching, it would seem that The Highways Agency calls it the Bromford Viaduct too, so I guess that is its official name, seeing as they are the government department in charge of UK roads. I still think the Spaghetti Viaduct sounds better :)
However, the second question still remained unanswered. On the Motorway Archive page it states the bridge "was then the longest continuous viaduct in Great Britain", which implies it no longer is. Having said that, in November 2010, a few months after my initial post, it seems someone else had thought the same thought, and added the bridge to the Wikipedia page for the longest bridges. Seeing as there is no other mention of a longer UK bridge and the Second Severn Crossing is measured as being 472m (1576ft) shorter, I think, until proven otherwise, Brummies can be proud to have the longest bridge in the UK.
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