Mawanella Old Arch Bridge

Mawanella Old Arch Bridge (Sinhala:මාවනැල්ල පැරණි පාළම) is a colonial-era brick bridge located in Mawanella town in Kegalle District, Sri Lanka. History The construction work of the Colombo-Kandy road commenced in the early part of the 19th century under the direction of the British Colonial Administration (Abeyawardana, 2002). Accordingly, they had five bridges to be completed across a few rivers on the new route. These included the arch bridge over the Maha Oya in Mawanella, the ferry bridge over the Kelani Ganga River , the arch bridge over the Hingula Oya in Hingula, the Pilimathalawa Bridge across Nanu Oya and the Satin bridge over the Mahaweli Ganga river in Peradeniya (Abeyawardana, 2002). Of the five bridges, the construction work of the Mawanella bridge was started in 1832 and completed in 1833 (Abeyawardana, 2002). The bridge The 70 m long bridge rests on four brick arches and no other reinforcements have been used in its construction (Abeyawardana, 2002). Although over 180 year…