From the earliest days of Wallis Plains, established as a convict farming settlement in 1818-19, travel across the low-lying, swampy and flood prone area below what became known as Campbells Hill was problematic.
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By the early 1820s, with farm settlement burgeoning further up the valley and access a critical necessity, intending settlers, teamsters, livestock, carts and wagons had great difficulty in traversing the area.
During wet weather or floods, movement could be impossible for weeks at a time. The solution was a bridge, and one was built in about 1825 over the most westerly section of the low land of Veterans Flat.
In either 1833 or 1838 a much longer structure, the first Long Bridge and like its predecessor made of wood, came into being. Built by convicts, it was a toll bridge, with a toll house at its western (Campbells Hill) end.
Periodically damaged by floods, some of which covered its deck, it frequently needed costly maintenance of piles, crossbeams, handrail and sleepers. Parts of the bridge were completely rebuilt at times.
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The big flood of 1893 washed away much of the bridge. It was quickly rebuilt in ironbark, 1050 feet (320 metres) long, and in 1894 thousands of people attended the opening ceremony making it hard for dignitaries to get to the dais erected in the middle.
Fifteen years later a tram trestle was added on one side to allow tram services to be extended to Regent St for the benefit of Campbells Hill and Telarah residents.
Between 1935 and 1938 a replacement structure was built in concrete, and on Arbor Day, 1939, school children planted poplar trees on its downstream side.
The record flood of 1955, which at its peak saw water a metre and a half deep over the deck and several Mount Pleasant houses dashed to pieces on being washed into it, destroyed several spans.
Westward travel on the vital New England Highway was rendered impossible.
Again the bridge was rebuilt, this time in concrete and steel. The new structure was opened in August 1956, 18 months after the flood.
More poplars were planted, gifted by Muswellbrook Council. In 2018, old and apparently decaying, they were removed after a council decision that provoked negative comment in some quarters.
Early in the present century, concerns arose on Maitland's emergency management committee about the fitness of the bridge for evacuation purposes.
In big floods, but even in floods smaller than the one that struck in 1955, the Long Bridge is likely to be the last route out of Lorn, the CBD, Horseshoe Bend and the streets adjoining High St. If it becomes untrafficable through water over the deck or damaged by debris, people who have not evacuated will be stranded unless they can be rescued by floodboat or helicopter. It is distinctly possible that there will be insufficient boats and helicopters to get everybody out.
The solution, one day, will be a new Long Bridge. It might be part of a gradually rising western High St, the bridge itself sloping upwards to the west and finishing higher than the current structure at Campbells Hill.
Such a bridge would help make it possible for those in the older parts of Maitland to escape a developing flood in their own vehicles.
Maitland and District Historical Society
