The Erne Basin is huge. It stretches almost from sea to sea, and before the advent of the infrastructure of roads, railways and bridges, the whole system of river, tributaries and lakes was a major thoroughfare. Everyone travelled by boat.

In 2017, I gave a wide-ranging talk, on my personal perception of the River Erne, as a contribution to the Fermanagh Live Festival.

In the course of doing my research, with the help of large-scale maps, I visited every single tributary to try to understand its individual character.

Because I am an octogenarian with bad knees, I relied very much on the views from bridges and, when the terrain allowed, I walked across fields to photograph the bridges from the side.

I was astounded by the trouble and expense which our forefathers had gone to to make elegant and stylish structures. It made me very much aware that the bridges of the Erne Basin are an unsung and unknown treasure.

The earliest bridge that I know of is the one at Arney – which the Cleenish and Killesher community groups discovered while settling the question of where the Battle of the Biscuits took place – that was built in the 1600s.

In the summer of 2018 a gentleman walked into the Castle Museum, Enniskillen and described himself as a descendant of Captain Sir William Smith, who had, in the mid-1790s, done a series of drawings, mostly in Fermanagh and Tyrone, of strategically important areas, particularly bridges.

Now that we have seen them, we know his drawings of the West Bridge in Enniskillen, are very informative!

The West Bridge at that time, with its imposing Gatehouse Tower, must have been a landmark, a familiar presence in Enniskilleners’ lives.

Another structure which was much admired while it lasted was the Weirs Bridge.

Built in 1878 for the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway, it was an iconic landmark for all of us living in this area.

A cutting-edge design in its day, it was a truss bridge with a distinctive profile which, combined with the red oxide paint which protected it, gave it a remarkable presence.

The affection in which the Weirs Bridge was held is borne out by its inclusion in the murals painted on the walls of the Regal Cinema (now Fermanagh Unionist Association) in the 1940s. Although the bridge is gone, the murals are still there!

Also in the 19th Century, the present West Bridge was built, necessitated by the Erne Drainage Scheme of the 1880s which involved deepening the channel lower than the foundations of the bridge’s predecessor.

The present bridge’s two elliptical arches are not only elegant, but have a great echoing acoustic, and it was the delight of my brother and me to clap or shout (or sing) as we passed under it in the idiosyncratic boats which my father designed and built for himself and our family.

These two 19th Century items in our architectural heritage – the Weirs Bridge and the West Bridge – were boldly and imaginatively designed and have given those of us who live on the banks of the Erne and its tributaries a strong sense of place and identity.

Once we come to the 20th Century, we are not so lucky with the elegance of our bridges.

After the Second World War, the Westminster Labour Government embarked on creating the Welfare State – a programme of providing affordable housing; free elementary, secondary and university education; and free health care for absolutely everybody.

But although the idea was truly admirable, the architecture which developed to express the profoundly egalitarian ethos was not so appealing.

In the 1950s, in Enniskillen, two bridges were built under the influence of this aesthetic: The Johnston Bridge, which opened up Cornagrade for housing and, as part of linking the inner-ring Queen Elizabeth Road scheme to Belmore Street, The Ramp.

The deck of the Johnston Bridge was relatively close to the water level and the bed of the river so shallow that, instead of using an elegant, low arch, the support system was a multitude of piles.

Some of them, as they were driven down through the mud, hit glacial boulders and went askew. Because they ultimately struck bedrock and were considered to be structurally sound, they were left that way and remain to this day.

The underside of the deck shows the newly-introduced pre-stressed concrete units. The solid, stone, parapet walls rise so high as to preclude a view of the water and any sense of being on a bridge.

The Ramp (nestled between the Clinton Centre and the East Bridge) is also built in a utilitarian manner.

Underneath, the construction does not have an elegant appearance. Like the Johnston Bridge, the deck is made from concrete units. These rest on heavy beams which in turn sit on sets of four heavy piers.

The beams overshoot the carriageway and turn upwards in clumpy, heavy, awkward ‘knuckles’. This brings us to the nub of the matter.

When I was first introduced to the computer-generated video of the proposed bypass, released by the Department for Infrastructure, my eyes were immediately drawn to similar ‘knuckles’ on the proposed bridge.

They have the same heaviness as the Johnston Bridge and The Ramp.

In the process of being asked by my friend Frank Britton to help to draw the attention of our fellow Enniskilleners to the importance of asking the powers that be to remember the feelings and aspirations of the ‘natives’ in the design of the new bridge, I suggested that I ask another Enniskillener, Adrian Dunbar, to lend a hand.

I emailed. Adrian emailed back: “I have to say that I’m in agreement with you on the new bridge ... please let’s not have some Communist-era government-approved ugliness”. I asked if I could quote him: “Absolutely!”

As a final note, I’d like to mention that although I have concentrated up until now on the view of the various bridges we’ve looked at, I was reminded, by Adrian, that the view from any bridge is important.

His father, Sean, worked on the construction of the Castle Bridge, so for him it has a family significance.

He emailed a postscript: “And while I'm at it can we please have aesthetically pleasing railings on the Castle Bridge ... it's appalling that the decent architectural lines of the bridge itself are destroyed by ugly utilitarian railings ... it's really wilful to insist on something this ugly in what happens to be one of the great sights of Fermanagh ... the West entrance to the town of Enniskillen.”

I agree with him. If you look at the clumsy, utilitarian railings on the Castle Bridge, I’m sure you’ll agree with him too.

The information available from the government video regarding the parapet railings on the proposed bypass bridge is very scant.

It is impossible to judge what is represented but before it becomes a reality, it might be worth asking for assurance that the view from the new bridge, for drivers and pedestrians, be enhanced by the railings rather than obscured or demeaned.

One further thought which occurs to me, is that although fancy structures can be expensive, using a conventional structure but lining it underneath with angled mirrors so that drivers and passengers in boats passing underneath will see themselves and the landscape in a huge, abstract kaleidoscope, could be achieved much less expensively.

There’s also a lot can be done with coloured lighting. The bridge could be quite a sight from the foyer of Ardhowen on a winter’s night!

Frank Britton has already alluded, in public discussion, to examples of bridges adding value to their locations.

He acknowledges, and I agree with him that, in a worsening economic climate, to push for something as fancy as those bridges is, sadly, unrealistic.

Nevertheless, in recent years, right round the world, bridge design has become significantly more imaginative, more celebratory.

But it’s hard to let go of the feeling that we too, in Enniskillen, should push for, at a new and significant entrance by water into our beloved town, a bridge which expresses our desire to continue the strides which the Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde festivals achieved towards showing that, with imagination, we can enjoy a lively creativity.

We need that aspiration to be backed up by the design of the bridge. None of us expect a complete redesign of the bridge, but there is probably room for tweaking. I think there is hope for a meeting of minds.

The Department for Infrastructure video shows three slim, shallow arches supporting the spans of the bridge. That’s a very good start!

Richard Pierce is a retired architect.