Manufactured by Charles De Bergue and Co of Manchester in England to the design of WT Doyne, it was assembled by Salisbury Foundry in Launceston.

It was the first metal bridge erected in this hemisphere.

Shipped from London on board the bark Syren, the iron work arrived in Launceston on August 3, 1863 in 555 packages, addressed to ‘Cataract Bridge, West Tamar Road Trust’.  

It took three months and nearly 24,000 rivets to fasten together all the separately-constructed pieces set out by templates on a floating dock moored near the Market Wharf.

With a length of 220 feet, and a light wrought iron arch of 190-foot span the impressive structure had never previously been fitted together to test its accuracy.

Yet such was the precision with which the contractors had worked to the engineer’s drawings all the pieces fitted perfectly, just like a jigsaw or a life-sized Meccano set.

Amazingly, its precise positioning relied on the very river it was designed to conquer.

On December 8, 1863 the arch was moved on the floating dock from one of the jetties at the lower end of Charles Street, to the abutments at the entrance to the Cataract of the South Esk.

Some 80,000 bricks were used to construct the abutments and wing walls.

These had been made ready for the bridge’s placement, built into the solid basalt rock which forms the almost-perpendicular sides of the gorge.

Three days later the final adjustments had been made and at high tide the arch was swung around and secured between the abutments.

The roadwork started immediately, but it was not until February 4, 1864 that the bridge was opened formally.

Northern Tasmanians were given a public holiday for the grand occasion.

On February 6, 1864, the Cornwall Chronicle described the scene:

“The views from the hills during the ceremony were very beautiful. The slopes of the hills on either side of the river were covered with delighted spectators; the river itself was crowded with boats filled with more visitors. On the south-west side looking up the Cataract gorge, the view was one of primitive, romantic, natural beauty, and one of such singularity as could scarcely be matched in any part of the world. On the north-east side, the junction of the North and South Esk Rivers with the Tamar forms a lake-like sheet of water on the margin of which lies Launceston and New Town, or Swamp Town, and beyond, first the cultivated lands towards Patterson's Plains, and then the wild bush with the tiers and Ben Lomond in the distance.”