Northbank Heritage Trail

STOP 17
Three Bridges

Location: Grassland on Navigation Drive, between Grimes and Webb Bridges

Jim Stynes Bridge

At the end of North Wharf downstream from Berth No.5 is the Jim Stynes Bridge. It was designed by Cox Architects and opened in 2014. A horizontal suspension bridge, it comprises a pedestrian and cycle boardwalk trail which closely hugs the north bank, looping in a 30-metre arc at water level beneath the Charles Grimes Bridge around to North Wharf in the Docklands Precinct. It creates the illusion that it hovers unsupported above the water’s edge. The bridge was named after prominent Irish-born footballer Jim Stynes who died in 2012. Two bronze plaques outlining Stynes’ achievements are installed at each end of the bridge.

Charles Grimes Bridge

Construction of the Charles Grimes Bridge commenced in January 1975. During this time, until its opening in August 1978, it was known as the Johnson Street Bridge. In 1983 the bridge was re-named, more appropriately from the perspective of maritime heritage, as the Charles Grimes Bridge to honour the NSW Surveyor General, Charles Grimes. In 1803 Grimes was sent by Governor King to the Port Phillip District, to complete the survey of Port Phillip Bay, during which his small party identified and sail some distance along the Birrarung/Yarra.

Glitches during the construction of the Charles Grimes Bridge continued into the twenty-first century. In May 2000, it emerged that a project had commenced to re-design Charles Grimes Bridge in response to planning decisions that it no longer connected with Footscray Road. Inadvertently these new bridge works encroached on a 32-metre strip of private land. Compensation had to be paid to both the landowner and the lessee of the land to complete the project.

The bridge is a dual four-lane structure designed to be compatible with a future extension of the Westgate Freeway. Its low clearance over the Birrarung/Yarra further added to restrictions to prevented shipping access to the wharves upstream.

Webb Bridge

As the maritime and commercial activity in Melbourne evolved, so too did the bridges of this city. Webb Bridge is an extraordinary example of this pattern. Webb Bridge was originally the Webb Dock railway line which provided a rail link for the dock, the first ‘roll-on roll-off’ berth in Melbourne’s port situated at the mouth of the Birrarung/Yarra. It was designed to facilitate rail transport of goods to the West Melbourne rail yards but proved impractical and was decommissioned in 1992. Materials were recycled into a new Webb Bridge in 2004 as part of the construction of the Docklands Precinct.

The eye-catching Webb Bridge has won several awards in recognition of its unique design, which is modelled after an Indigenous fish trap. It is the work of Australian artist Robert Owen in collaboration with architects Denton Corker Marshall. The bridge is made of recycled materials from the decommissioned Webb Dock railway line and as Webb Bridge. It symbolically links Melbourne’s Indigenous past and its maritime future, while physically linking Docklands with Southbank for Melbourne’s pedestrians.

As you cross over the north ramp of Webb Bridge, notice the Australian plantings, rather than the London Plane Trees seen near Flinders Street Station. From this small pocket of grassland, more remains of wharf and port infrastructure can be seen in the heavy wooden pylons at the water’s edge.

FURTHER READING

IMAGE CREDIT
Grimes and Webb Bridges, photographer Jeff Malley 2022