Two long standing structures in London are being recognized for their historic engineering.
Blackfriars Bridge and the Egerton St. Double Sewer were designated national civic engineering sites Friday. The honour came from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering as part of its annual conference being held in London this week.
"It's remembering the past and the civil engineer that has built infrastructure that connects people," says Tony Begin, president of the CSCE. "A bridge like Blackfriars is a link in the city and thousands of people cross it. That is very representative of what civil engineering does."
The host city of the society's annual conference is allowed to submit a site to be considered for the designation.
"The bar is always higher and higher from one year to another," says Begin. "Normally we only recognize one site per host city. In this case having above and below ground infrastructure was a good selection."
Blackfriars Bridge, dubbed one of the oldest in Canada, was built in 1875. Its bowstring arch design made of wrought iron was considered creative and innovative at the time. The 100-year-old Egerton St. Sewer is a separated sewage system built at a time when death rates were nearly double those of the present day, mostly due to water-borne diseases.
John Braam, city engineer for London calls the designations an incredible honour.
"We've had special issues, special events, special innovation, special engineering that has been undertaken in the past. We are recognizing it in this day in age which is a testament to good engineering and good municipal interactions as well," says Braam. "Those engineers of the day would have faced significant pressures in terms of the cost of the device, the new technology, its proven ability to do what they said it was going to do. They would have all been obstacles to overcome.
The CSCE's history program records and preserve whatever tangible evidence remains of the significant work of earlier generations of civil engineers. The designation has been bestowed upon 73 sites with historical significance across Canada since 1983.
