In February 2004, the Sir Thomas Fairfax Bridge received the ICE Merit Award and IStructE Small Project Award. In addition, in November 2004 it was awarded Winner of the Concrete Society's Civil Engineering Category.

The project was described as a "visually stunning retro arch bridge designed to fit in with the historic image of Nantwich town". The judges were particularly impressed with the fact that a bridge could be constructed to such tight tolerances using modern day construction materials and still give the impression of being traditionally built around 100 years ago.

The bridge is on a 17 degree skew and has a 17m span. The main body of the bridge is made up of elliptical skewed plain concrete arches. The inclusion of a skew on elliptical geometry is very technically demanding and required detailed 3D analysis. The outside spandrel panels have brick slips cast into the face and are constructed from sandstone coloured structural concrete. After a period of time, the coloured concrete is shot blasted to bring up the desired old stone effect.

Transport of the spandrel units required all physical limits to be pushed to the extreme. The overall weight exceeded 100t and the overall height left only 2" below the motorway bridges. The trailer was fitted with independently levelling suspension to compensate for any adverse road cambers, the units were potentially very unstable as most of the weight was 3m above the trailer!

Macrete are very pleased about this award, especially as we are 25 years old this year!