Stone Bridge (Regensburg)

Regensburg Stone Bridge Steinerne Brücke
The bridge seen from the south bank of the Danube
Coordinates	49°1′22″N 12°5′50″E / 49.02278°N 12.09722°E / 49.02278; 12.09722Coordinates: 49°1′22″N 12°5′50″E / 49.02278°N 12.09722°E / 49.02278; 12.09722
Carries	Road (closed to traffic)
Crosses	Danube
Characteristics
Material	Stone
Total length	308.7 metres (1,013 ft)
No. of spans	16
History
Construction end	12th-century, probably in 1135–46
Replaces	Wooden bridge

The Stone Bridge (Steinerne Brücke) in Regensburg, Germany, is a 12th-century bridge across the Danube linking the Old Town with Stadtamhof. For more than 800 years, until the 1930s, it was the city's only bridge across the river. It is a masterwork of medieval construction and an emblem of the city.

The south end of the bridge may have been the location of an ancient city gate. The early 16th-century Amberg Salt Store (German: Salzstadel) and the early 17th-century Regensburg Salt Store were built against it. The Regensburg Sausage Kitchen east of the Salt Store was built against the city wall in the 14th century; an earlier building on the same site probably served as a canteen for the workers building the bridge. Further east is the Regensburg Museum of Danube Shipping.

The bridge has historically caused problems for traffic on the Danube, as was observed by Napoleon in 1809. It causes strong currents which required upstream shipping with insufficient power to be towed past it until 1916, when an electric system was installed to draw ships under the bridge. This was removed in 1964. Since modern barge traffic requires more clearance than the arches of the bridge provide, this stretch of the river is now only used by recreational and excursion shipping. Larger watercraft bypass it to the north by means of the Regensburg Regen-Danube Canal, which was built on the flood plain called the Protzenweiher which had been used for a cattle market and public amusements and forms part of the European Water Route between Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine and Constance on the Black Sea. (Demolition of the bridge to remove the obstruction was proposed as early as 1904.)

Charlemagne had a wooden bridge built at Regensburg, approximately 100 metres (330 ft) east of the present bridge, but it was inadequate for the traffic and vulnerable to floods, so it was decided to replace it with a stone bridge.

The Stone Bridge was built in only eleven years, probably in 1135–46.Louis VII of France and his army used it to cross the Danube on their way to the Second Crusade. It served as a model for other stone bridges built in Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries: the Elbe bridge (now Augustus Bridge) in Dresden, London Bridge across the Thames, the Pont d'Avignon across the Rhône and the Judith Bridge (predecessor of the Charles Bridge) across the Vltava in Prague. It remained the only bridge across the Danube at Regensburg for about 800 years, until the construction of the Nibelungen Bridge. For centuries it was the only bridge over the river between Ulm and Vienna, making Regensburg into a major centre of trade and government.