© Fritz Wissemborski (www.fritz-wissemborski.de )
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17.09.2014
© brueckenweb.de / Monika Sellke
Use in accordance with the terms and conditions
17.09.2014
© brueckenweb.de / Monika Sellke
Use in accordance with the terms and conditionsA map is loading
The bridge consists of two clinker-brick towers on each bank and a steel roadway. The roadway includes two asphalt lanes for cars and bicycles, as well as a pedestrian lane on each side, separated by a wall at lift height.
The bridge has a span of 40.80 m. The roadway is 5.50 m wide; including the footprint of the towers, this results in a total width of 10.30 m. The lifting device, using a MAN machine and steel cables, raises the roadway by 3.50 m to allow ships to pass through. The guard's house is located above the northern footpath in the middle of the bridge. The switch house on the northwest bank is an annex. Once the bridge is raised, pedestrians and cyclists can cross the bridge via a staircase.
History
Until the 18th century, there was a ford on the site of today's Cecilia Bridge, which allowed crossing the Hunte River. The dam, after which the western access road is named, was formerly a log dam in the boggy marshland surrounding Oldenburg. The road was part of a trade route that led from Westphalia via Oldenburg to Bremen, strengthening the city's role as a trading center.
The construction of a wooden bridge over the dam is recorded for 1752. Grand Duke Paul Friedrich August expanded the bridge into a stone arch structure in 1832 and named it after his wife, Cecilia of Sweden. In addition to the bridge, the Cecilia School in Oldenburg is also named after her.
With the construction of the coastal canal in the 1920s, the Hunte River also had to be navigable for large ships up to 600 gross register tons, thus creating a need for a higher bridge. Since this was not possible under the existing structural conditions, the state of Oldenburg opted for the construction of a lift bridge. The bridge was designed by Adolf Rauchheld, the then Minister of Construction in the Oldenburg government. In 1927, the same year as the similar old Amalien Bridge, the Cecilia Bridge was completed and was, for a time, the largest lift bridge in Europe.
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Towards the end of World War II, the roadway was blown up to make it more difficult for Allied troops to cross the Hunte. It was then rebuilt and has been fully restored since 1948. /p>
In February 2013, the responsible Water and Shipping Authority announced at a meeting of the Oldenburg City Transport Committee that it intended to demolish the current bridge and replace it with a completely new structure. The authority justified the project by arguing that both the masonry and foundation, as well as the lifting mechanism of the listed bridge, were severely damaged, making renovation impossible for safety and cost reasons. Construction work is scheduled to begin in 2017. [