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Ngwezi Bridge

Every now and again we come across a truly remarkable and unique source of reclaimed timber in our travels around Central Africa . The original Ngwezi Bridge is one such source. When we managed to acquire these highly valuable beams, we commissioned renowned Danish architect and furniture designer, Troels Ritzau, to design a table specifically for a Limited Edition to be made from these wonderful timbers.

Dimensions

Ideal number of seats	Length		Width
	Imperial	Metric	Imperial	Metric
10	10 feet.	3 meters.	3 foot 8 inches.	1.1 meters.
8	8 feet.	2.4 meters.	3 foot 3 inches.	1 meter.
6	6 foot 4 inches.	1.9 meters.	3 foot 3 inches.	1 meter

Pictures:

Timber information:

Reclaimed African Hardwood info

These tables, unique in their unusual history and original design, will be a fantastic investment that will appreciate with time. They will come with a pictorial and written history of the bridge.

Originally built in 1928 to carry the Mulobezi Railway line across the Ngwezi River, in South Western Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), the bridge was sadly vandalised over the years and many of the timbers destroyed. As a result the Heritage Society of Zambia decided to dispose of the remains.

The Mulobezi line was built to extract timber to supply SAR (South African Railways), B&MR (Beira and Mashonaland Railways) and RR (Rhodesia Railways) with railway sleepers.

Here is what Geoff Calvert had to say in his book ‘Sitimela’ about the building of the

Ngwezi Bridge :
‘George Wilson related that the bridge design was “sketched out on the backs of envelopes by the construction staff of Messrs Knight, Richard and Wienan, while sitting around their evening camp fire”, trestle spacing being determined by the different lengths of “I” beams available from Rhodesia Railways. Attractive and credible though this story is, it is apocryphal. A fortuitously rescued manuscript contains four pages of stress calculations checked by RR Bridge Engineer Mr. W. L. Bonny, dated August 1928, which prove that the bridge was a correctly engineered structure. Daily details were undoubtedly discussed over the evening fire by men with years of practical mining and “bush engineering” experience, but supported by professional calculations. Design loads were for 7^th Class running upon 60lb rail. Concrete footings sunk into the river-bed proper, varied from 11.75 feet to 15.75 feet. Trestles, or technically Bents, were constructed from mkusi (Rhodesian Teak) baulks of 12” x 12” in cross section braced by 9” x 3”’s. The nine trestles in the river were 15 feet from footing to girder, giving about 20 feet from rail to bed. The total design length was approximately 305 feet.’

Rhodesian Teak, at 1200 kg per cubic meter (72lb per cubic foot) is one of the hardest timbers in the world. It is also an exceptionally beautiful timber, with a fine close grain and rich red brown colour that polishes into the most beautiful pieces imaginable.

Harvested Teak info

Zambezi Teak has long been recognised as an astonishing furniture-making timber, being both incredibly strong and stunningly beautiful. The wood is extremely dense, very heavy and almost impossible to break, making it incredibly difficult to work with, but at Savanna Wood we have perfected our methods and see these qualities as positives only, positives that the customer invests in as Zambezi Teak if cared for appropriately will last for hundreds of years.
A testament to the wood’s durability is the fact that in many parts of Africa , still today, Zambezi Teak railway sleepers or “ties” carry the weight of modern day trains despite having been laid down as long ago as the eighteen hundreds.
The Ngwezi Table, fashioned after the original Ngwezi Bridge is another unique addition to the Savannna Wood collection