The old stone bridge was replaced in 1919 by this simple bridge, with concrete deck, known as the ‘Peace Memorial Bridge’. Once described as ‘one of the best bridges in Victoria. With the park facing wall removed, the bridge still carries a portion of the Princes Highway over the Dandenong Creek on the railway side.
Over the years ‘the rapids of Dandenong’, so described once by the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, have swept away more than one bridge in the area. The first bridge over Dandenong Creek was constructed in 1840. A flood swept this away ten years later and it was replaced.
The stone bridge, built in 1866, probably by Robert Huckson, lasted 52 years. Part of it was granite, quarried locally from the vicinity of Wedge and Power Streets. The integrity was undermined by repeated floods, rendering the bridge unsafe for use.
Some of the stones that can be seen in this picture are actually remnants from it's predecessor, as they had scattered a lot of them along the creek to build it up after the erosion damage that had been caused by previous flooding.
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