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Bromfield’s Bridges
Interlaken Road Bridge, built in 1941
June Road Bridge, built in 1935
Wildwood Road Bridge ParapetWildwood Road Bridge, built in 1933
Cedar Heights Road Bridge, built in 1933
Cold Spring Road Bridge, built in 1935
Riverbank Road Bridge, built in 1940
ou may be familiar with the rustic
Cold Spring Road and June Road
Bridges, but up Long Ridge Road is
another of Stamford’s historic
treasures: the Wildwood Road
Bridge. All you can see from the
road is the rusticated stone parapet
wall of the bridge, which straddles
private property. But underneath the
parapet is a Twentieth Century
stone bridge worthy of a Bing-
Crosby-in-Connecticut movie.
Only it’s not simply a stone
bridge. None of them are. They are
all a combination of modern
technology–concrete reinforced with
steel–combined with stone masonry.
Calling it solid stone masonry
though is a misnomer. The original
approach walls , or wingwalls, of
the June and Cold Spring Road
bridges, for instance, appear to have
been constructed of stone that was
laid in sand beds and then pointed
with mortar.
On the other hand, the parapet
walls of the Cold Spring Road
Bridge are likely solid masonry. The
reinforced concrete elements on the
Cold Spring Road Bridge are the
abutment and pier bridge seats, the
bridge deck and steel beam encase-
ments and the spandrel walls, which
do contain veneered stone.
On the June Road Bridge, the
structural arch and bridge railing are
reinforced concrete construction.
These three and two other bridg-
es–Cedar Heights Road and Interlak-
en Road (over the North Stamford
Reservoir outlet)–were designed by
Llewellyn Bromfield Jr., who served
as Stamford’s Town Engineer from
1932 to 1938 and also built bridges
for Stamford as principal of his own
firm (a predecessor of Redniss and
Mead), which he headed from 1915
to 1962. He designed Boyle Stadium
at Stamford High School as well.
In the first 2o years of the
Twentieth Century, modern bridge
building was experimental, but by
193o, the durability, minimal
maintenance, speed of construction
and ability of reinforced concrete
to be styled as various bridge types
made it the technology of choice
for many bridges.
In 1926, Bromfield was
appointed to a town planning
commission that addressed road
improvement issues. Between 1926
and 1941, Stamford built a total of
19 bridges, about half of which
originally combined some form of
reinforced concrete construction
with stone-faced elevations or
actual stone parapets and other
naturalistic features.
Most of Stamford’s bridges
are anonymous, but according to
preservation consultant Michael Raber, “the town retained
Bromfield for most or all of the
Depression-Era bridges,” so
Bromfield may have designed or
influenced more than these five.
One of these possible
Bromfield bridges–Riverbank
Road–is easy to miss. It is a
reinforced concrete slab bridge
about a quarter mile West of Long
Ridge Road on Riverbank Road.
From the road you will see
only two stone parapets, which,
like Cold Spring Road parapets,
are all stone,, a decorative element
made possible on this short-span
bridge by the structural concrete in
the bridge deck under the road.. If
you walk down the bank on the
south side of the road you will also
find a long all-stone retaining, or
channel wall extending down the
river 3o feet or more. The effect is
quite picturesque.
Bromfield was known to have
taken inspiration from bridges in
Acadia National Park on Mt.
Desert Island in Maine, built by
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., as well as
bridges on the Bronx River
Parkway.
Since the youngest of
Bromfield’s stone-faced bridges is
now 75 years old, they are all in
need of repair. The City of Stamford
has already sensitively rehabilitated
the Cold Spring Road and June
Road bridges, retaining much
original material, and city
engineers now have Cedar Heights
Road and Riverbank Road bridges
in their sights. So HNP and HPAC
are providing technical and
historical input to encourage the
best outcomes on the rest.
by Judy Norinsky