Rating:
24945
{7}%
1 vote
Castle Hill Road Bridge
Description
The Castle Hill Road Bridge was one of the most significant bridges in the state of New Hampshire, despite its small size. One of the reasons for this is that the bridge had a wooden superstructure - something that is becoming exceedingly rare and usually only found in covered bridges. Additionally, the Castle Hill Road Bridge was part bridge and part culvert. This means that the creek flowed under the wooden deck, but then passed through a culvert before reaching the other side of the bridge. This resulted in the bridge itself being narrower than the creek, giving a strange appearance to the water when crossing the bridge.
Because the bridge was wooden and was deteriorating, it was posted at a weight limit of 3 tons in 2001. The bridge was severely damaged by the Mother’s Day Floods of May 2006, in which Beaver Brook completely washed away the culvert and caused the wooden superstructure to rot and partially give way. The bridge was closed indefinitely the next month after it was determined that an immediate repair was not feasible. The bridge remained closed for over a decade, until it finally collapsed under the weight of the February Nor’Easter in 2017.
Facts
- Overview
- Wooden bridge over Beaver Brook on Castle Hill Road in Pelham
- Location
- Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, and Rockingham County, New Hampshire
- Status
- Destroyed by severe weather
- History
- Built 1920; rehabilitated 1973; closed indefinitely after damage from flooding in 2006; collapsed under weight of a blizzard in 2017
- Design
- Timber stringer
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 22.0 ft.
Total length: 26.9 ft.
Deck width: 16.1 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +42.77417, -71.35000 (decimal degrees)
42°46'27" N, 71°20'60" W (degrees°minutes'seconds")
- Approximate UTM coordinates
- 19/307751/4738415 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Windham
- Average daily traffic (as of 2014)
- 260
- Inventory number
- BH 24945 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
- Inspection report (as of September 2016)
- Overall condition: Good
Superstructure condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Very Good (8 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 87 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- October 23, 2017: New Street View added by Matthew
- May 28, 2015: New Street View added by Royce and Bobette Haley
Sources
- Royce and Bobette Haley - roycehaley111 [at] yahoo [dot] com
After a long series of negotiations, the town of Windham in conjunction with NHDOT have decided that they are not going to replace the Castle Hill Road Bridge, and therefore the Mammoth Road access to the neighborhoods within will be closed indefinitely.
The primary reason for this is that residents and people affiliated with Windham High School, which is located on the NH-111 side of the road (the road is known as London Bridge Road on that end) were concerned that replacing the bridge and reopening the road would result in a significant increase in traffic using the road as a shortcut/bypass and would therefore end the area’s ability to be a quiet residential neighborhood. There has been a significant increase in the amount of traffic using both Mammoth Road and NH-111 since the closure of the Castle Hill Bridge in 2007, and therefore residents on both ends are concerned about the increase in traffic a reopened bridge could bring.
Reportedly, an historical marker to indicate the location of this bridge prior to collapse is going to be erected, although I have not heard anything more than that.