|
|
|
THE BRIDGES of
THE TYNE
More than
eighteen hundred years ago the great Roman Emperor Hadrian,
sovereign of the mightiest empire upon earth, at the head of a
warlike expedition to the furthest limit of his dominions and
almost to the fringe of the then known world, erected the Tyne's
first bridge near the place where now the Sovereign of a still
wider Empire will open the latest triumph of engineering skill,
whose giant arch grasps, with friendly soaring span the lofty
banks of the adjacent towns.
But while Hadrian's
object was to raise the huge barrier of the Roman Wall against
the inroads of the Northern tribes, the bridge which King George
will open is to give easier passage to two peoples happily
united in the bonds of peace. For Tvne Bridge will form part of
the Great North Road which joins the two capitals of a United
Britain.
There is usually
a definite reason why towns have sprung up in the places they
occupy. Edinburgh clustered round the rugged rock whose castled
height gave safety at its base. Newcastle and Gateshead rose
upon the slopes which mount from the place nearest the sea.
where their tidal river could most easily be bridged. The Tyne,
which is "the gate of the sea for Northumberland and
Durham, the gate of the land for the Baltic and Scandinavian
trade," has thus, together with its bridges, been the
source of their origin and their growth.
For the long period
of more than three centuries the Romans held the wall and bridge
against the northern tribes, and gave opportunity for the
peaceful development of the arts and civilisation of the
southern portion of our Island. They brought, as a priceless
gift to Britain and their vast dominions, the enjoyment of just
laws, open trade, easy communication by excellent roads, and a
peace which extended from the shores of the Tyne to beyond
far-distant Palestine and the desert sands of the Sahara. Europe
thus enjoyed for a few centuries the benefits of a peace and
union which it is the aim of the League of Nations to restore.
In the course of time prosperity, with luxury in its train,
weakened the vigorous qualities of the Roman peoples. Rivals for
the imperial throne sapped the strength of the Empire by their
struggles for power. Warlike tribes from Germany and the North
made inroads on Italy and Rome itself, and it was necessary
about 410 A.D. to withdraw forces from Britain to protect the
Heart of the Empire. The Britons were unable to defend
themselves. The wall and the bridge were overrun by their
barbarous neighbours and the fair prospect of a peaceful, happy
and united Europe passed like a dream.
From the withdrawal
of the Romans to the time when James I. in 1603 crossed the
bridge as the monarch of the United Kingdom, Northumberland was
always borderland, and, as the gateway to the buffer state, Tyne
Bridge had its full share of the shocks to which its position
was exposed.
|
