page_title: Hadspen, Tasmania
section_title: Bridges
hierarchical_section_title: Hadspen, Tasmania / Bridges
caption_attribution_description: Site of Reibey's ford-the only river crossing point nearby until the 1840s. Later this was the site of the, often underwater, sequence of 3 19th and 20th century bridges.
context_page_description: Hadspen is a town on the South Esk River in the north of Tasmania, Australia, 8 kilometres south west of Launceston. Hadspen has few commercial establishments and is primarily a residential suburb of nearby Launceston. Most of the town's buildings are residential, and relatively recent. The town's population of just over 2000 has grown rapidly from only a few hundred in the 1960s, and there are development plans that call for its doubling.
  Settlement began in the early 19th century as a cluster of houses on the Launceston side of the river, near a frequently-flooded ford. Over time various bridges were built, largely on the same site, across the river. Though it had been settled for some time Hadspen was only officially declared in 1866. Hadspen was originally on the main road from Launceston to Devonport but the town's centre was bypassed in the late 20th century. There have been schools, both secular and religious, in its history, though there remain none.
  The town has heritage-listed properties and some others from colonial times. The town's historic centrepiece is Entally House, built in 1819 as a wealthy settler's colonial estate.
context_section_description: Flooding of the South Esk River and the need for a river crossing have constrained transport in the town for much of its history. The South Esk, now crossed by a bridge on the Meander Valley Highway, separates the town from settlements further west and unusually high floods can cut the highway on the town's east, when it is submerged at Beams Hollow. The river was first crossed by a ford known as "Reibey's Ford" near Entally House. Due to the variability in its flow this ford was frequently impassable requiring traffic to make significant detours. Thomas Haydock Reibey installed a punt at the crossing in 1828. By a specially passed Government act he was allowed to charge a toll for its use.
  Tenders were called for in 1836 for design and construction of a bridge at the village of Hadspen. Five years later the colony's government passed "Reibey's ford act" to facilitate construction of a bridge. The act specified that of the £1500 cost for the bridge, £500 was to be paid by the government, and the remainder by Thomas Haydock Reibey. To recover the costs Reibey was allowed to charge a toll, assisted by a toll house and by turnpikes at the bridge's ends. On construction the toll was mandated as 1d per person, 1s per wagon or carriage, 4d per unladen beast and 1/2d per calf, sheep, pig or lamb. The elder Reibey died before the bridge was completed and his son and executor Thomas Reibey acquired his father's rights, collecting the tolls after the bridge was completed. The toll was to run for the lesser of 30 years, or whatever time it took to pay for the original bridge construction costs plus an annual 15% interest. The wooden bridge was completed by November 1843, and within a little over a year the tolls had raised 453 pounds. It was known as "Reibey's Bridge" and was narrow—fitting only a single wagon—with a single chain each side for safety, a fact that caused the loss of at least one valuable horse. 
  The bridge became noted for its insecure state, the lack of rails a particular issue, and it was referred to as "dangerous and unsightly". A new bridge, 3 feet (1 m) higher than the one it replaced, was under construction in 1878. This new structure was 350 feet (107 m) long, had a wooden frame and deck standing on stone piers. Floods continued to overflow Hadspen's only bridge, floods in 1893 may have been 8 feet (2.4 m) above the bridge's approach road's level; both the bridge and approach roads were extensively damaged and 250 feet (76 m) of guard rails were carried away.
  By 1911 the river was crossed, on the same site, with a steel bridge. This new structure had concrete buttresses and a wooden roadway. In March of that year floods over-topped it by approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) and five of the bridge's seven spans went down, girders were broken,  piers sheared through, and some swept into the river. The bridge was repaired later in the year and stood for another half century. Over time, particularly after floods, there were calls for the bridge to be raised, though the expense of the work—and the only occasional nature of flooding—was cited in defence of the bridge's adequacy. When the river flooded the bridge, it also often flooded Beams Ford on the other side of Hadspen, temporarily cutting off all road access to the town.
  The Minister for Land and Works had approved work on raising it in 1939, but this was postponed indefinitely due to World War II. Raising or renewal of the bridge was again being investigated in 1946. The river again flooded over the bridge in July 1952, the first time since the mid-1940s, and the timber deck was still being repaired into 1953. The last and latest bridge was constructed as part of a bypass of the centre of Hadspen. By 1978, the Bass Highway crossed the river further upstream and the old main road was no longer a through road. This bridge is a 240 metres (790 ft) long two-lane single-carriageway concrete structure.
caption: Site of Reibey's Ford and subsequent bridges
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