Historical information

‘Studley Park Bridge’ or ‘penny bridge’ linked Church Street in Abbotsford and what is now Yarra Bend Park. The privately constructed bridge opened in 1857, gaining its popular name from the toll charged at the Abbotsford end. The engineer of the 485ft wide bridge was Mr. Austin and the builder was ‘Mr Grant, who threw the bridge over the Niagara’. Following the opening of Johnston Street Bridge, declining tolls led to the Bridge falling into disrepair. Badly damaged by the flood of 1891, the Bridge was compulsorily acquired by the Government in 1899, and later dismantled and sold for firewood.

Significance

This work forms part of the collection assembled by the historian Dorothy Rogers, that was donated to the Kew Historical Society by her son John Rogers in 2015. The manuscripts, photographs, maps, and documents were sourced by her from both family and local collections or produced as references for her print publications. Many were directly used by Rogers in writing ‘Lovely Old Homes of Kew’ (1961) and 'A History of Kew' (1973), or the numerous articles on local history that she produced for suburban newspapers. Most of the photographs in the collection include detailed annotations in her hand. The Rogers Collection provides a comprehensive insight into the working habits of a historian in the 1960s and 1970s. Together it forms the largest privately-donated collection within the archives of the Kew Historical Society.

Physical description

A print, taken in the 1960s by Dorothy Rogers, from an original albumen silver photograph now in the collection of the Kew Historical Society. The photograph shows the toll bridge (also known as the Penny Bridge) from the northern end.

Inscriptions & markings

"P[enny] Toll Bridge - built 1857. from old photo"