Ballaugh Bridge

Herve Gantner wearing a rookie orange high-visibility vest jumping from Ballaugh Bridge in 2010

Ballaugh Bridge, (in Manx: Balley-ny-Loghey or the homestead of the lake),[1] is a hump-backed road bridge over a stream situated between the 17th and 18th Milestone road-side markers on the Snaefell Mountain Course in Ballaugh village, on the primary A3 Castletown-to-Ramsey road and adjacent side junctions with the A10 Ballaugh-to-Ramsey coast road and the tertiary C37 Ballaugh Glen Road in the parish of Ballaugh in the Isle of Man.

Ballaugh Bridge was part of the Highland Course and Four Inch Course used for the Gordon Bennett Trial and Tourist Trophy car races held between 1904 and 1922. It was the western edge of the Sandygate Loop for the 1904 Gordon Bennett British Eliminating Trial and the 1905 Tourist Trophy Race for cars.[2] The 1906 Tourist Trophy Race used the Short Highroads Course, with the abandonment of the Sandygate Loop in favour of the A3 Castletown to Ramsey Road. Ballaugh Bridge is part of the Snaefell Mountain Course used since 1911 for the Isle of Man TT and from 1923 for the Manx Grand Prix races.

The A3 Castletown to Ramsey Road at Ballaugh Bridge with its side-road junctions with the C37 Ballaugh Glen Road and the A10 Ballaugh Station Road hidden behind

The Bridge was subject to road widening and reprofiling during the winter of 1953/1954 for the 1954 TT races including the removal of a garden wall of the adjacent Ballaugh Railway Hotel (now the Raven Hotel).[3] Ballaugh Bridge is the only remaining hump-backed bridge on the Snaefell Mountain Course after the removal of Sulby Bridge in the 1920s and Ballig Bridge in 1935.[4]

Nearby is a road-side memorial to Karl Gall, a member of the works BMW motorcycle team,[5] who died from injuries after crashing at the bridge during practice for the 1939 TT races,[6] and there have been seven other competitor deaths at this point.

Sources

  1. ↑ Place Names of the Isle of Man by John Kneen MA pp446 (1970) Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh The Scolar Press
  2. ↑ TT Pioneers – Early Car Racing in the Isle of Man pp 22 Robert Kelly, Mercury Asset Management (1996)(1st Edition) The Manx Experience, The Alden Press ISBN 1-873120-61-3
  3. ↑ Isle of Man Weekly Times dated 29 May 1954
  4. ↑ Isle of Man Weekly Times dated 25 May 1935
  5. ↑ The Tourist Trophy in Old Photographs Collected by Bill Snelling. pp58 1st Edition (1994) Sutton Publishing ISBN 1-84015-059-9
  6. ↑ Isle of Man Weekly Times dated 17 May 1939

External links

Coordinates: 54°18′34″N 4°32′28″W / 54.30944°N 4.54111°W / 54.30944; -4.54111

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