i
Three miles south of Canterbury the ll
road drops down into a valley to 
cross the Nail Bonnie before climb- ing again to Barham Downs. e bridge at the river crossing gav 15
name to the small community which over the years straddled the track- way i through the valley bed, one of L
those comforting blends of me
aeval, Georgian and Victorian  
and cottages which managed to 1
avoid being overtaken by bungalow- e
mania. Bridge prospered: before the last W31‘ 34 small businesses thrived there. Of all the surrounding vil- 
lages, Bridge was easy to get to and ;p
avoided the extra trek into Canter
bury. - 
There isn’t a main road in the l
country -that hasn’t seen an increase j?
in trafic flow over the past 20 years. L
Bridge’s problem wasn’t so much it
the volume of trafiic but the weight. Increased trade with the  J
Market and new ferry and harbour 
facilities in the Kent ports had it
brought a sharp increase in heavy W
lorries to the A2 route and its towns 
and villages. During the late Sixtit 
TIR traflic through the Channel ports was growing at the rate of 35
almost 40 per cent. a year until in ;
1975 282,000 TIRs passed through pl
Dover and Folkestone, 90 per cent. 
of which were using ‘the A2/ M2 link 1
to London. i s _i
Bridge’s problems were three- ii
fold. Traflic entering the village ll
from either direction had to descend H
a steep hill with a heavier than nor-- 
mal risk of brake failure or loss of 
control. Any truck driver who knew the road would also know that he-’d i‘
have a steep climb out of the village i
and would want to ‘sustain momen- tum. Furthermore, right in the centre of the villfie the road narrowed to a 
maximum of 17ft. 6in. »-