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St.Ives is a historic market town dating back to the 11^th Century.

Its early prosperity was due to barges bringing goods from the Wash ports up the Ouse and across the Fen marshes, the first town which provided a hard landing was St.Ives. A bridge across the river was constructed about 1100 making road transport possible in all directions.

The cattle market was first established in 1286 and was one of the largest in Eastern England. Again the geographical position of St.Ives as a focal point of river and road traffic was an important factor in its growth.

The town has grown in its own right during the past two decades with the population increasing from 3350 in 1957 to nearly 12000 today. This increase and the growing demands in road transport have resulted in the present day traffic congestion and delays at the old river bridge.

Over the past 20 years traffic congestion in the town has become intolerable as the photographs clearly show. Delays have been unacceptable both to the motorist and industrial traffic. Commercial and shopping activities in the town centre have been severely disrupted and often unpleasant and dangerous for the pedestrian.

The new bypass will not only relieve traffic from the shopping centre but will provide a vital link between the industrial development on the north side of the town and the A604 (A14) east/west trunk road which gives direct routes to the A1, M11 and the A45 east coast ports' roads.

The proposal for a bypass was first suggested in 1936, and formalised in 1951 when the former Huntingdonshire County Council incorporated it in the Development Plan. The first route was to be to the west of the existing river bridge, and link up to Ramsey Road.

There were objections when the route was published in the early seventies and a public inquiry was held in August 1972. In 1973 the Secretary of State for the Environment rejected the western route and asked the Council to investigate an eastern route.

After Local Government Reorganisation in 1974 the new Council adopted an eastern route and the design was started in 1976. Construction of the bypass itself started in January 1979. The route chosen incorporates a 471 metre long viaduct to cross the River Great Ouse flood plain, and makes use of a disused railway for approximately 1 kilometre of its total 3 kilometre length. Comprehensive landscaping and tree planting will be carried out to minimise the intrusion of the road, as well as provide alternative species to replace the depleted elm.

The A1096, of which the bypass will form a part, is the main road between the A604 Cambridge - Huntingdon road to the south of St. Ives, currently being improved to dual carriageway standard, and the Al123 to the north. The link to the town of St. Ives will be via a roundabout at Meadow Lane. Roundabouts are also constructed at the Hemingford/Fenstanton Road and with the Al123 the Needingworth Road.

With the opening of the bypass, the old river bridge will only be used by pedestrians, public service vehicles, and access for goods vehicles. The centre of the town will be mainly pedestrianised and should revert to the quiet place it was many years ago.

The first bridge over the River Great Ouse at St. Ives was probably built in about 110 when Henry I granted the Abbot of Ramsey the right to hold an annual fair at Slepe (the ancient name of St. Ives) in Easter week. This bridge was of wood and remained until about 1415 when it was replaced by the present stone structure, built at the expense of the Abbot of Ramsey.

The structure was finished in 1426 and the Chapel of St. Leger which was built upon it is a most unusual feature.

After the dissolution of the abbey in 1539, the chapel came into the hands of the crown, was subsequently sold in 1570, and converted into a dwelling. It was badly damaged by fire in 1689, and in 1736 two additional storeys of brick were added as bedrooms. In 1929 the chapel was restored to its original condition. Since the reformation the chapel has been Lised as a Roman Catholic place of worship, a shop, a temporary lock-up before the police station was built and, in the 19th century, an inn.

The limestone for the bridge was quarried at Barnack near Stamford and the six arches took ten years to construct. The two southern arches were rebuilt in 1716 after a drawbridge had been substituted for the southernmost arch in 1645 as a defence against the Royalists during the Cromwellian Wars.

The southern approach to the bridge consists of a raised causeway over fifty flood arches, built by the Duke of Manchester in 1822.

The new bridge is constructed in insitu reinforced concrete and consists of twenty eight spans. Its total length is 471 metres and is supported by twin elliptical piers for the twenty five land spans, and leaf piers in the river. The bridge deck is a thin flat continuous slab over the land spans, with a varying section over the river to give a curved effect. To allow for river traffic, the centre river span is 33 metres long, with the majority of the other spans being 16.3 metres in length.

Fortunately, navigational clearances were not great and the slim deck has been designed to give a low profile in keeping with the flat landscape of the wide river flood plain. The design has received the approval of the Royal Fine Arts Commissioners.

The dense gravel sub-soil enabled the foundations to be designed without the use of piling. Expansion joints to accommodate thermal movement are provided at both abutments and the central island pier only. The bearings are made of PTFE and allow for both rotation and sliding movement.

It is hoped that with the use of modern materials in its construction, the new bridge will withstand the test of time and in five hundred years be as pleasing to the eye as the existing bridge is today.

At the beginning of the contract in January 1979, the flood plain was under water on several occasions, and the contractor, A. Monk & Company, gave a high priority to an early completion of the viaduct columns. All the columns had been purposely designed to a standard height for ease of construction. By the use of a single split elliptical steel shutter lined with iroko hardwood, all 48 columns were cast by mid-summer 1979.

To safeguard against flooding during the contract period restrictions were imposed regarding the obstructions to be allowed in the flood plain by the temporary works. To overcome this the contractor elected to use Bailey Bridge units to support the formwork, and was able to work on four spans as a casting sequence.

The basic system used for the land spans was to cast one span, and then roll the Bailey units out sideways from under the deck, and erect them in the next span. By this method it was possible to cast one viaduct span per week.

The main river bridge span was also cast in position with heavy Bailey Bridge panels used to support the curved soffit shuttering. It was necessary to cast the decks in one operation and up to 350 cubic metres of concrete were poured over a 6 hour period. To achieve this the concrete was pumped from the delivery trucks directly into the deck slab.

The bypass has been designed as a single 7.3 metre carriageway, and construction is of lean concrete base and two layers of asphalt surfacing (118 mm thick). All this is overlaid on gravel sub-base which is a local material.

The earthworks operation consisted primarily of 40,000 cubic metres of imported fill. The contract imposed a restriction of the use of the existing St. Ives River Bridge for the movement of imported fill. By utilising borrow pits adjacent to the site this was achieved and so further congestion and disruption to the traffic in the town centre was avoided. At the end of the excavation the pits were flooded and it is now a recreational water amenity area.

To minimise the visual intrusion to some fifty residential properties, a 2 metre high earthmound has been constructed for some 600 metres along the line of the old railway.