St. Peter's Bridge

If you want to have a good idea of what a canal looked like in the 19th century, you should definitely visit the protected St. Peter's Bridge. It is located in a very idyllic setting, on an old arm of the Bossuit-Kortrijk Canal.

The Bossuit-Kortrijk Canal connects the Scheldt with the Lys and dates back to 1861. Twelve hundred workers take three years to excavate the 15.4-kilometre-long bed, of course entirely by hand. There will also be 18 bridges, the Sint-Pietersbrugje is one of them.

The first thing you notice when you visit the site is how narrow the bed is by our standards - the bridge is on an old canal arm, so the dimensions are historically correct. The canal was originally intended for ships up to 300 tons. In comparison, it is now navigable for ships up to 1,350 tons.

St. Peter's Bridge is relatively rare: not many 19th-century examples of iron lift bridges remain.

It is operated by hand, which is much easier than it sounds: the bridge keeper turns a wheel to retrieve them, but due to the counterweights and the gearing, he does not have to exert very much force.

The bridge has served for more than a hundred years: when it was widened in the 1980s, it will be located on this old canal arm.

Vl. Toeristisch bezienswaardigheden