Longhe Bridge

Longhe Bridge

Commonly known as the New Bridge, it runs east to west, spanning the Longhe River, and is located on Qingshijia Road in the county town. It is a single-arch stone bridge, built with rubble stones and bonded with lime mortar. The total length is 15.76 meters, and the width is 5 meters. The parapet walls on both sides of the bridge deck are 0.9 meters high. The arch is formed by seven single voussoirs arranged in sequence, with a span of 10 meters. The abutments at the eastern and western ends are 8 meters high, and there are 30 steps leading up from the bridge approaches. Some of the inclined parapet walls have partially collapsed, but the rest show no misalignment, especially the arch barrel which has tightly bonded joints and remains largely intact.

During the Zhengde era of the Ming Dynasty, County Magistrate Zhang Banggu built this bridge as part of the city wall construction, but he left office before its completion. In the first year of the Jiajing reign (1522), County Magistrate Lu Bingzhang completed the three-arch bridge initiated by his predecessor, commonly known as the New Bridge. It was later washed away and rebuilt solely at the expense of Tan Yue. Since then, it collapsed several times, but each time it was restored by descendants of the Tan family. In the 44th year of the Wanli reign (1616 AD), Tan Yue’s fourth-generation descendant, Tan Jingji, converted the three-arch stone bridge into a single-arch stone bridge and expanded its height and width. During the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty, Xin Shoushen raised funds for another renovation, adding stone parapet railings, resulting in its current form.