The Powerscourt Covered Bridge

The story of one of Canada's oldest covered bridges

In Canada, the Hartland Covered Bridge in New Brunswick is considered to be the most famous covered bridge in the country. A lot of this has to do with the fact it is the longest covered bridge at 391 metres. It isn’t the only covered bridge in Canada though, and it is a long way from being the oldest.

For that, we have to go to neighbouring Quebec where there is a bridge with a history that dates back several more decades than the Hartland Covered Bridge.

It is the Powerscourt Covered Bridge, located over the Châteauguay River near Hinchinbrooke, Quebec.

Also known as the Percy Bridge, it was built in 1861 using the McCallum inflexible arched truss design that was invented only ten years before construction began.

When it was constructed, the bridge was the only bridge in the world with that design that was not a railroad bridge. The bridge features two spans that are structurally-independent of each other, atop three masonry piers. The longest span is 26 metres in length.

The bridge is 51 metres in length, 6.2 metres in width and eight metres in height. It was built to handle traffic along the First Concession Road.

By the year it was constructed, wooden truss railway bridges had been replaced with steel and concrete bridges, and bridges such as this were fading away.

Today, it is the last McCallum-style covered bridge in the entire world.

In 1984, the bridge was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada because it was the only known example of the McCallum-style of bridge, and it was also one of the oldest covered bridges in Canada.

Three years later, it was named an Historic Monument of Quebec.

In 2009, the bridge was fully restored based on the original 1861 plans.