Fans of “Marlow Murder Club” may recognise this beautiful bridge over the Thames at the bottom of Marlow High Street. Designed by a brilliant engineer, a pioneer of suspension bridges, William Tierney Clark, it was a prototype for a massive bridge he designed to span the Danube in Budapest. What a wonderful feat of civil engineering! And for the citizens of Marlow in 1832 when it opened, it must have seemed very modern.
Fast-forward to the Brutalist era. Modernisers in the council and central government wanted to destroy Marlow’s special bridge! It was being damaged by heavy traffic, and it was a ludicrously narrow bridge for a main A road, as it was at the time. A new river crossing was needed, of course.
Fortunately, some very determined local residents formed the Marlow Bridge Preservation Society in 1957. They had to be very determined as they battled wave after wave of duplicitous politics and bureaucracy. Eventually, in 1966, the historic bridge was re-opened after strengthening.
What about progress? A new modern bypass between Wycombe and Maidenhead was finished in 1972 with its own, new, ultra-modern, wide bridge. Sometimes, you can have your cake and eat it. The preservation of an important, handsome artefact of civil engineering history AND a new, modern road outside the town was achievable because people cared and campaigned. We can all be heroes when we have a worthy cause to stir us.
