Heritage Bridge Repairs and Maintenance

Bridge repairs and maintenance using the Cold Metalock Process

As a custodian of our rich architectural heritage, do you face the challenge of preserving historic bridges made from cast iron? At the Metalock Engineering Group, we’ve earned a reputation for our special understanding of heritage bridge and maintenance. When a piece of UK history needs restoring, you can count on our experience and specialist skills.

Newcastle High Level bridge repair

In 1985 Metalock Engineering Group was contacted by British Rail to investigate the feasibility of a cold repair to the cracked cast iron fascia panels on the high level bridge over the River Tyne, a Grade 1 listed structure.

Eighteen years later, further inspections showed an increase in damage to many of the bridge castings, so a decision, was taken to find a permanent repair solution. It was decided that a full damaged fascia panel would be delivered to Metalock’s Coventry workshops and repaired.

The order was the largest ever received in the UK company’s 59 year history for carrying out repairs using the famous Metalock cold repair process and certainly the longest running ever undertaken. To date, a total of 644 man days were worked in 2005, repairing a variety of cracked, broken or completely missing bridge castings to the road deck level.

Ha'penny bridge repair - Dublin

The bridge is a List 1 structure in the Dublin Corporation Development plan and takes its name from the Ha’Penny toll collected between its construction in 1816 to the toll ending in 1915.

As part of the restoration of the Ha’Penny Bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin, Metalock Engineering Group carried out a series of magnetic particle inspection checks on various critical components and, using its metalock metal stitching techniques repaired the damaged parts for Irishenco Construction, main contractors for the project.

Due to the significance of the bridge as an icon of the City, great care and attention was given to the restoration process and to allay the concerns of various heritage groups, as much of the original material as possible was either repaired or refurbished.

Only severely damaged and unusable components were remanufactured. The tie-rod end caps, for example could have been replaced with new, but the Metalock process enabled effective repair of the originals, in-situ.

Charing Cross Bridge

A famous landmark in Central London, the 100 year old Charing Cross Bridge carries 123,000 commuters across the Thames by rail each day. 720 feet of cracks to the structure’s sixteen cast iron columns were successfully repaired by the Metalock process with 108,000 drillings and 36,000 tappings performed on site - without disruption to rail services.