This was the first of six covered bridges I shot on Saturday 5-2-2009 in Lancaster County, PA. The Shearer’s Covered Bridge sits in the Veteran’s Memorial Park in Manheim, PA. It’s single span, wooden, double Burr arch trusses design spans the Big Chiques Creek for a length of 86 feet. The bridge was built in 1847 by Jacob Clare. It was rebuilt in 1855 at it’s original location and stayed there until it was moved in 1971 to its present location in the Park. It’s the only covered bridge in Lancaster County that is painted entirely red both inside and out and it is one of only three county bridges featuring horizontal side boards.
The bridge is not open to vehicular traffic but gets pretty heavy pedestrian and bicycle traffic. There is a picnic pavilion within 100 feet of the bridge and walking trails on both sides of the creek offer a very peaceful setting for nature observation and taking in the wild flowers abundant in the area. The bridge had at least four quality angles to shoot it from unlike several of the other bridges I experienced today.
The WGCB # for this bridge is 38-36-31. Over the years the bridge has also been known by the names Kaufmann’s Distillery Bridge, Whiskey Distillery Bridge and Big Chickies 1 Bridge.
A covered bridge tour that includes this bridge is included on the maps and directions found on this page.
Processed as an HDR with Photomatix Pro from five RAW bracketed frames and touched up a bit with Topaz Adjust Plugin for Photoshop CS4 to bring out some of the weathered tones in the wood.
Comments on this entry are closed.