Having recovered from jet lag a bit (or is it garlic lag?) I can give you an update on bridge 5, thanks to the excellent pictures taken by our structures engineer John while I was away.

So:

Bridge 5, Little Buckland

Here we see the embankment being built up on the eastern Broadway side, where the approach road is. Do you remember the huge deep hole that was here? Filled with concrete it is now.

On the above two pictures you can see that this infill stretches all the way down the wing wall, and that the brick layers have started to rebuild the face of the wing wall in engineering blues, so that when all is finished, you won't be able to see the difference, and yet the wall is straight again.

Ballast walls completed under the drip strip

 

Concrete slope added to protect the wall from tamping etc.

Pilaster construction, again with a nice plinth. One of the original pilasters - a brick column - was found 20yds away in the grass ! How did it get there?

 

Complete pilaster, cap stone still to fit. Nice bull noses on the wing wall too. Not an everyday brick to find either.

Wing wall being covered in blues

Nearly finished !

Finally, a view of the deck from underneath. It all looks very neat, and now well protected from the elements. Neat rows of rivets, no damage, plenty of thick brown paint. The job looks to be well on the road to completion. Balustrades still to fit though, amongst many other minor jobs still left to do.

An update on bridge 4 is still pending, but there has been progress here too.