The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
This film is part of Free
The New Tamar Bridge
A TV crew is the first to cross the River Tamar using the new road bridge.
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Overview
Westward Television cameraman David Howarth climbs atop his custom-made Outside Broadcasting Ford Anglia estate and is the first to film the new road suspension bridge over the River Tamar. The bridge's toll booths are the finishing touches to link the counties of Devon and Cornwall and four shillings and sixpence (4s 6d) or the equivalent twenty-two and a half pence return was to be charged.
Nowadays the bridge is run as a company with the Torpoint Ferry and a fare is paid one way travelling eastwards. The bridge spans the River Tamar from Plymouth to the suburb of Wearde in Saltash and spelt the end of a centuries-old ferry crossing which hung up its oars in October 1961. Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge opened in 1859 for the railway and the new road bridge runs parallel. A toll-free foot and cycle path was added when the bridge was widened and strengthened in 2002 and the bridge became the first to use cantilevers on a suspension bridge winning an award for civil engineering.
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