История Тайнского моста: от римских корней до современности.

the 1983 2010 Parliamentary Constituency

Bridge in north east England

The earliest bridge across the Tyne, Pons Aelius, was built by the Romans on the site of the present Swing Bridge around 122. A series of wooden bridges were lost to fire or flood, and plans for a stone bridge were begun in about 1250 with support from local landowners, and the Bishops of Durham, York and Caithness. The stone bridge was constructed but then damaged by flood in 1339. Repairs proved costly and took place in sections: it was not fully repaired, as a part stone and part wooden bridge, until the 16th century and was part destroyed by a great flood in November 1771. Following this, a new stone bridge was begun after the city council petitioned Parliament. The foundation stone on the north side was laid by Sir Matthew White Ridley on 25 April 1775, with the south side foundation stone laid in 1776. Works were completed by 13 September 1779, at an estimated cost of between £30,000 and £60,000. The Tyne Bridge was designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson, comparable to their Sydney Harbour Bridge version. The bridge was completed on 25 February 1928, and officially opened on 10 October that year by King George V and Queen Mary, who were the first to use the roadway, travelling in their Ascot Landau. The opening ceremony was attended by 20,000 schoolchildren who had been given the day off. Movietone News recorded the speech given by the King. The Tyne Bridge's towers were built of Cornish granite and were designed by local architect Robert Burns Dick as warehouses with five storeys. Although a lift shaft was also included in the South tower no lift was ever installed. The bridge's design uses a parabolic arch. The bridge was originally painted green with special paint made by J. Dampney, Tonbridge, Tingate Co. of Gateshead. The same colours were used to paint the bridge in 2000.

In 2012, the largest Olympic rings in the UK were erected on the bridge. The rings were manufactured by commercial signage specialists Signmaster ED Ltd of Kelso. The rings were over and weighed in excess of four tonnes. This was in preparation for Newcastle hosting the Olympic football tournament, and the Olympic torch relay, in which Bear Grylls zipwired from the top of the arch, to Gateshead quayside. On 28 June 2012, a large lightning bolt struck the Tyne Bridge. It lit up the roads as the sky was very dark. The bolt, part of a super cell thunderstorm, came with heavy rain – a month's worth of rainfall in just two hours – causing flash flooding on Tyneside. In 2015, Newcastle upon Tyne was a host city for the Rugby World Cup. Three matches were played at St James's Park, the home of Newcastle United Football Club. In recognition, a large illuminated sign was erected on Tyne Bridge. Similarly, the bridge was depicted in an official BBC trailer for the 2021 Rugby League World Cup (in reference to Newcastle being one of the host cities). On 13 November 2017, the Tyne Bridge was the venue for the Freedom on the Tyne finale, the finale of the 2017 Freedom City festival. The festival commemorated Newcastle's civil rights history and the 50 years since Dr Martin Luther King's visit to Newcastle, where King received his honorary degree from Newcastle University. Newcastle University and Freedom City 2017 wanted to use the Tyne Bridge to symbolically hark back in history to Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama where King was involved in one of the key moments for the struggle for civil rights in 1965. Work on the main bridge deck started in April 2024, with completion expected in time for the bridge's centenary in 2028.

The bridge and nearby structures are used as a nesting site by a colony of around 700 pairs of black legged kittiwakes, the furthest inland in the world. The colony featured in the BBC's Springwatch programme in 2010. Several groups, including the Natural History Society of Northumbria and local Wildlife Trusts, formed a "Tyne Kittiwake Partnership" to safeguard the colony. A proposal for a tower to be built as an alternative nesting site was made in 2011, and in November 2015 a neighbouring hotel submitted a planning application for measures to discourage the birds.