40 Fun Facts About Humber Bridge

Why are the Humber Bridge's two towers 36 mm farther apart at the top than at the base?

The Earth's curvature means two truly vertical towers standing 1,410 metres apart cannot be parallel. Each one points straight up from its own spot on the globe, so the tops splay very slightly.

Who officially opened the Humber Bridge in July 1981, twelve days before a famous royal wedding?

Queen Elizabeth II opened the bridge on 17 July 1981, about three weeks after traffic first crossed. Her son Charles married Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July.

Which country built the bridge that took the world's-longest-span record from the Humber Bridge in 1998?

Japan opened the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge near Kobe in April 1998 with a central span of 1,991 metres. That is more than half a kilometre longer than the Humber Bridge's.

What flew over the Humber Bridge's 1981 royal opening midway through the Archbishop of York's prayer?

The Red Arrows arrived on schedule, but the Archbishop had added an extra verse to his prayer of dedication. The jets roared overhead in the middle of it.

Which TV motoring show raced a man wading across the Humber against a car banned from the Humber Bridge?

Top Gear pitted Hull man Graham Boanas, on foot through the estuary, against James May driving the long way round in an Alfa Romeo. Boanas won.

The Humber Bridge's towers broke with tradition for giant spans by being built of what instead of steel?

Concrete had never been used for the towers of such a long span. It was chosen partly for cost and partly to suit the flat estuary landscape.

Sir Ralph Freeman, who drew up Humber Bridge plans in the late 1920s, is best remembered for which arch bridge?

Sydney Harbour Bridge was Freeman's best-known design. His first Humber scheme, with several piers standing in the river, was abandoned in the 1931 economic crisis.

Which poet, a university librarian in Hull, wrote the words of a cantata celebrating the Humber Bridge?

Philip Larkin wrote the text of Bridge for the Living as the crossing rose near his home. Anthony Hedges, a composer he met in Hull, set it to music.

PS Tattershall Castle, a paddle steamer from the old Humber ferry, is now a floating pub on which river?

Thames visitors can drink aboard her at Victoria Embankment in London, where she was towed in 1976. The ferry itself stopped the day the Humber Bridge opened to traffic.

Which type of bridge is the Humber Bridge, the same kind as Bristol's Clifton crossing over the Avon Gorge?

Suspension bridges hang their deck from cables draped over tall towers. Each of the Humber Bridge's two main cables weighs about 5,500 tonnes.

Which East Yorkshire town stands at the northern end of the Humber Bridge, five miles west of Hull?

Hessle holds the toll plaza and the north tower, which stands on the shore. The south tower had to be built out in the water on the Barton side.

Which county lies at the southern end of the Humber Bridge, facing Yorkshire across the estuary?

Lincolnshire meets the bridge at Barton-upon-Humber. Before 1981, drivers heading there from Hull faced either a ferry crossing or a long detour inland.

Into which sea does the Humber empty after passing beneath the Humber Bridge and the port of Hull?

The North Sea receives the Humber beyond Cleethorpes. In the Ice Age the river ran much farther, across Doggerland, a plain that now lies drowned beneath the waves.

The Humber, spanned by the Humber Bridge, forms where the Ouse meets which river that flows through Nottingham?

Trent and Ouse meet at a spot called Trent Falls, near Faxfleet. From that point on the Humber is tidal all the way down, an estuary and not strictly a river.

Which American bridge inspired Sir Ralph Freeman's 1930s idea of crossing the Humber in one single span?

Golden Gate engineering showed Freeman that one huge span could silence objectors, who feared a row of piers would disturb the Humber's shifting bed and shipping channels.

The Humber Bridge Country Park fills an old quarry dug for which rock, also the north tower's bedrock?

Chalk was quarried on the north bank into the twentieth century, and the pit became a nature reserve after the bridge was built. The north tower is founded about 8 metres down in it.

Which kind of historic building, once used to make whiting for paint, stands on the shore by the Humber Bridge?

A windmill built in the early 1800s crushed quarried stone into whiting, a powder used in paint. It is the only survivor of four wind-powered whiting mills in the old East Riding.

Which road users staged a go-slow at the Humber Bridge toll booths, paying with large banknotes?

Motorcyclists slowly took off gloves and helmets to pay, protesting at a charge other big British toll bridges did not make. Bikes have crossed the Humber Bridge free since 2012.

Which 1984 industrial dispute brought a two-hour blockade of the Humber Bridge toll plaza by hundreds of pickets?

The miners' strike brought pickets from West and South Yorkshire to the northern toll plaza in the morning rush hour. Traffic backed up for five miles around Hull.

The first major scheme to cross the Humber, in the 1870s, proposed what instead of a Humber Bridge?

A tunnel was proposed in 1872 but never built, because the estuary's geology made it too expensive. A 1930s study again priced tunnelling at about four times the cost of bridging.

Which prime minister's government announced the Humber Bridge during a crucial 1966 by-election campaign in Hull?

Harold Wilson was governing with a tiny Commons majority when the Hull North seat fell vacant. Labour held it with an increased majority, and he called a general election soon after.

Which transport minister, who also brought in the breathalyser, sanctioned the Humber Bridge in 1966?

Barbara Castle agreed to the bridge at an evening meeting in a Hull primary school, nine days before a local by-election. Opponents in Parliament called it a pre-election bribe.

The Humber Bridge was given Grade I listed status in 2017 to mark Hull's year holding which title?

UK City of Culture year brought the bridge England's highest grade of protection. The listing praises a sublime landmark that pairs functional engineering with elegance.

Part of the old quarry in the Humber Bridge Country Park is known locally as 'Little' what?

Switzerland gives one corner of the park its nickname, which locals shorten to Little Switz or Switzy. The pit became a nature reserve once the bridge was finished.

Humber Rescue, an independent charity based in the shadow of the Humber Bridge, operates what kind of service?

A lifeboat service founded by the filmmaker Paul Berriff has launched from the north bank since April 1990. He was inspired as a boy by watching a rescue attempt at sea.

Which 79-mile National Trail to Filey passes under the Humber Bridge shortly after setting off?

Yorkshire Wolds Way walkers begin on the estuary shore and reach the bridge within the first few miles. The path then climbs into rolling hills and ends on the coast at Filey Brigg.

Which 147-mile walking trail runs from the Humber Bridge all the way to Oakham in Rutland?

Viking Way walkers set out from beneath the bridge on the south bank. The name recalls the Norse settlers of the Danelaw, who left the region its many place names ending in -by.

Which type of craft ferried passengers across the Humber from Hull in 1969 but kept breaking down?

Hovercraft named Minerva and Mercury ran from Hull's pier from February to October 1969. Frequent breakdowns dogged the service, twelve years before the Humber Bridge opened.

The Humber Bridge slashed the driving distance between Hull and which fishing port near the estuary's mouth?

Grimsby had meant a long drive inland and back before 1981. The bridge cut dozens of miles off the trip and took the passing traffic away from Scunthorpe.

Which Chancellor announced in 2011 a £150 million cut in the Humber Bridge's debt, halving the car toll?

George Osborne made the pledge in his Autumn Statement, and the car toll fell from £3 to £1.50 the following April. At £3 it had been the dearest toll crossing in the UK.

Which New York bridge lost its title as the world's longest span when the Humber Bridge opened in 1981?

Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, joining Staten Island and Brooklyn, had been the world's longest since it opened in 1964. The Humber Bridge's main span beat it by about 110 metres.

A 1955 design for the Humber Bridge looked much like which Scottish crossing that opened in 1964?

Forth Road Bridge was partly the work of Freeman Fox & Partners, the firm that went on to engineer the Humber Bridge. Its towers, unlike the Humber's, are made of steel.

The Humber Bridge's streamlined hollow-box deck used an approach pioneered on which 1960s motorway bridge?

Severn Bridge engineers swapped the usual deep lattice truss for a slim steel box shaped to stay stable in wind. It was lighter too, and the Humber's deck is made of 124 such boxes.

Freeman Fox & Partners, engineers of the Humber Bridge, also designed which bridge that opened in Istanbul in 1973?

Bosphorus Bridge links Europe and Asia, and some of the cranes and winches that built it were later reused on the Humber Bridge.

Which Labour transport minister said in 2009 that a Humber Bridge toll rise was wrong in the economic climate?

Sadiq Khan, later Mayor of London, spoke as his department refused the increase after a public inquiry. Car tolls then stayed frozen until October 2011.

Which A-road, running north from Peterborough through Lincoln, is carried across the estuary by the Humber Bridge?

A15 drivers once finished their journey at a ferry pier on the south bank. The road was rerouted to the bridge, and the old final stretch is now a B-road.

After corrosion was found in 2009, what began to be blown through the Humber Bridge's main cables to protect them?

Dry air pumped along the cables cut the humidity inside them from about 90 per cent to 40. Water had seeped in and started to rust the steel wires.

The ferry replaced by the Humber Bridge sailed from Hull to a pier at which south-bank village?

New Holland lost its ferry on 24 June 1981, the very day the bridge opened to traffic. Paddle steamers had worked the crossing for decades.

Wingfield Castle, a paddle steamer from the old Humber ferry, is preserved as a museum ship in which town?

Hartlepool is where she was built in 1934, so the ferry came home. A plan to make her a floating restaurant in Swansea failed because she was too wide for the marina's lock gates.

Which Danish bridge opened in 1998 with a main span even longer than the Humber Bridge's?

Great Belt Bridge was planned to be the world's longest, but construction delays let a rival open a few months earlier. It still pushed the Humber Bridge further down the list.