Мейденхед Көпірі: Тарихы мен Маңызы

the road bridge

Maidenhead Bridge is a Grade I listed bridge carrying the A4 road over the River Thames between Maidenhead, Berkshire and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. It crosses the Thames on the reach above Bray Lock, about half a mile below Boulter's Lock. The Thames Path crosses the river here.

The first bridge was built of wood in 1280 in what was then the hamlet of South Ellington. The Great West Road to Reading, Gloucester and Bristol was diverted over the new bridge – previously it kept to the north bank crossed the Thames by ford at Cookham – and mediaeval Maidenhead grew up around it. Within a few years a wharf was constructed next to the bridge and the South Ellington name was dropped with the area becoming known as Maidenhythe (literally meaning "new wharf"). The earliest record of this name change is in the Bray Court manorial rolls of 1296. Only a century later the bridge had again fallen into disrepair and during the reign of Henry VI was so unsafe that most travellers preferred to cross using the ferry.

Throughout its history the tolls on Maidenhead Bridge had been considered high and were the subject of disquiet. In 1337 the toll for a loaded barge to pass under or a loaded cart to pass over was 1 old penny (equivalent to £10 today). By the 1830s the bridge was recorded as raising £1,245 per annum in tolls (equivalent to £ today). It remained a toll bridge until 1903, after an Eton man named Joseph Taylor, who had already made a successful legal challenge against the tolls on Windsor Bridge petitioned the Charity Commissioners in 1902 that the toll was illegal as the funds raised had been used by the Maidenhead Corporation for purposes other than bridge maintenance – a fact freely admitted by the town clerk. The Charity Commission agreed that the toll was illegal and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1903 which legislated for tolls to cease after 31 October 1903. A large crowd gathered at the bridge and in the first moments of 1 November 1903 they removed the toll gates and threw them into the Thames. The tolls in 1903 were 1 shilling (equivalent to £ today) for a coach and horses, sixpence (equivalent to £ today) for a car and 10 old pence (equivalent to £ today) for twenty sheep.

In 2007, the bridge was the subject of a special exhibition to mark its 230th anniversary at Maidenhead Heritage Centre.