Abstract
As showed in the first part of this work [1], the technical heritage prior to the 1850´s presents an important number of remarkable timber bridges, especially in the last hundred years of that period. This paper presents, in a deeper detail, some of these masterpieces. The study is limited to Europe and USA due to the lack of first-hand sources. The examples were selected trying to thread the history of breakthroughs in timber bridge engineering up to the 1850´s. They will show that the past is still a lesson for the present. The authors assume, in agreement with others [2], that a case study should be developed according to the following three key features: the structural type, the material and the connection system. The case study has been complemented with an explanation around the corresponding temporal context, which has the advantage of facilitating a global and deeper understanding. This is a first stage work, trying to follow the one by James [3];and claiming, as other current works [4] do, for an effort to study this cultural and technical heritage.
