A survey of Hong Kong's historic bridges

Abstract

Historic Bridge is one of the major heritage structures in the world. USA has Golden Gate Bridge (1937) at San Francisco, England has Tower Bridge (1894) at London, Italy has The Rialto Bridge (1591) at Venice, France has Pont du Gard (20BC) at Remoulins and China has An-Chi Bridge (安濟橋) at Zaoxian (趙縣), Hebei (河北) (605 A.D. Sui Dynasty (隋朝)). How about Hong Kong? Hong Kong also has a lot of historic bridges and they are distributed in Hong Kong Island, Tsuen Wan and New Territories such as Min Mo Bridge (便母橋) (1710), The 21-Arch Section of the Bowen Aqueduct (1887) and Tai Tam Tuk Reservoir Masonry Bridge (1970). But what is the condition of them? Whether they are graded or declared as monument will have different level of conservation. They are facing what kinds of impact? All these questions are interesting to investigate and the answer may be useful for those who interested in heritage bridge study in Hong Kong or who want to know another type of heritage structures other than the historical buildings.

In this survey, it will cover the 17 numbers of historic bridges with different status from Grade 3 to Declared Monument in Hong Kong. In order to carry out the detailed survey for each bridge, I have spent over 3 months to research the history of the bridges and 5 months site survey to collect the data and inspect the current condition of all bridges by taking site photos, tape measurement, drawing site sketch and carrying out visual appraisal. Finally, I carried out the data analysis and based on the finding to draw out the conclusion of this survey.

I hope you can find out the answers from it and obtain understand the current condition and impact to the historic bridge in Hong Kong.