Surat is surrounded by Tapi river as the warm hug of mother nature. Sometimes it has shown anger to it’s kid and many times enormous love and care. Part of Surat City lies on the other side of river and hence the need for having a bridge keeps coming up frequently. Today we have more than double digits bridge across Tapi River, but one of the earlier bridges “The Hope Bridge” was build during the 1870s in British era.
Hope Bridge was built on Tapi river by Sir Theodre Hope, when he was district collector and magistrate. The bridge’s foundation was laid in 1874 and it was completed in 1877. The bridge was dismantled in 2015 and replaced by new bridge keeping the old design of Hope Bridge intact.
IMAGE GALLERY
Old Hope Bridge
Source : Wikipedia
New Hope Bridge
Heritage Walkway
Heritage Walkway
Hope Bridge connects Adajan & Rander areas to Chowk area. This bridge was heavily used back then. Since a decade or so, the bridge got damaged to an extent it was unviable for public use. Hence, Surat Municipal Corporation took over the restoration and rebuilding of new bridge similar in look to the old one with more design elements. The new Heritage Walkway bridge was open to public on 3rd April, 2015. Since then this bridge has become a favorite spot for nature lovers and people are often seen enjoying the beauty of Tapi River, birds and sunset during the evenings.
Attached to this bridge, there is a fully functional Nehru bridge, which currently connects Rander-Chowk route. Surat Castle and Andrew’s Library are just few 100m away from this bridge.
HERITAGE SITES
Clock Tower 
Narmad House 
Gopi Talav 
Surat Castle
Please share your experience in the comment section below. If you know about other heritage sites in Surat and want to share with the world, visit our Contributors section.
