The bridge was funded and planned by the Beit Trust, a foundation chaired at the time by Sir Henry Birchenough whose ashes are buried beneath the structure of the bridge.
Ralph Freeman, the bridge’s designer, was also the structural designer on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and consequently the two bridges bear a close resemblance, although Birchenough is only two-thirds as long as the Australian bridge.
It was built by Dorman Long and completed in 1935; at a length of 1,080 feet (329 m) it was the third longest single-arch suspension bridge in the world at the time.
The bridge is widely considered by Zimbabweans as being one of the country’s finest pieces of engineering, and as such, it appears on the twenty-cent coin. It’s the only bridge without any piers or supports on the bottom holding it for its support.
The weight of steel in the Birchenough Bridge is exactly the same (1,500 tons) as that used in the bridge at Victoria Falls. But the arch span at Victoria Falls is only 500 feet as against more than twice that distance in the Birchenough Bridge. That difference in span, for the same weight of steel, represents thirty years of progress in metallurgy.
Before the building of the bridge the only outlet of the district of Chimanimani, during most of the year, to the towns of the west was along the mountain road to Mutare, where the Beira Railway joins the Rhodesian line to Salisbury.
Because it was impossible to cross the River Sabi, the journey from Chipinge to Bulawayo, the commercial centre of Southern Rhodesia, formerly necessitated a detour by road and railway of 600 miles.
The bridge has shortened that journey by 150 miles, and has provided access to the markets of Salisbury and Bulawayo for cattle and produce from the Chimanimani district. In addition, it is now possible to travel by road, in all seasons, from Capetown to the Congo.
A road vehicle in that part of the world is generally a long-distance lorry or coach, carried on six wheels and driven by a diesel engine. Such are the vehicles that use the Birchenough Bridge.
The great passenger coaches take visitors from South Africa to wonderful mountain scenery round the town of Melsetter, which stands at 5,000 feet above sea level.
