Royal Engineers to build Bailey Bridge at historic Christchurch site
4:00pm Thursday 15th March 2012 in By Katie Clark
‘ROYAL’ VISIT: The former MoD site behind the Bailey Retail Park in Christchurch
A HISTORICAL site in Christchurch will soon be brought alive when the Royal Engineers visit.
The former MEXE site, where Sir Donald Coleman Bailey invented the Bailey Bridge, will play host to the Royal Engineers demonstrating the construction of a modern military crossing.
The event will take place on Tuesday, March 27, between 1pm and 3pm at the site in Bailey Drive, behind Christchurch Retail Park.
Organised by Quantum Group, the event is free and open to the public.
Henry Lumby from Quantum said: “It’s a unique opportunity to see the Royal Engineers Christ-church troop, so-called because of the historical connection to the town of Christchurch, put up a modern military bridge.
“This is the very site where the Bailey Bridge was invented by Sir Donald Bailey during the Second World War so is of great importance to Christchurch.”
Quantum will be making a donation to the charity Help for Heroes.
Sir Donald Coleman Bailey was born in 1901 in Rotherham, Yorkshire and attended Sheffield University before joining the war office in 1928 as a civil engineer designer at the Military Engineering Experimental Estab-lishment (MEXE), in Christ-church.
It wasn’t until late 1940, at a conference on the problem of providing temporary spans capable of taking heavy loading, that Bailey’s concept of a strong but relatively light steel truss that could be prefabricated in sections was approved.
It was from this that the now world-famous Bailey Bridge, known for its readiness of assembly in the field and adaptability to bridge long spans with the aid of pontoons, was borne.
The simplicity of design enabled mass production and there were some 700,000 panels – around 350 miles of bridging – producing around 2,000 bridges, by 1947.
Sir Donald received an OBE in 1944 and was knighted in 1946, being promoted to director of MEXE before retiring in 1966.
The site at Bailey Drive was bought by Quantum last year.
It has applied to build a supermarket as well as affordable housing, on-site parking, a public riverside walk and piazza, public open space, community park facility, a low cost gym and other amenities.
