Senju-ohashi Bridge

The Senju-ohashi Bridge connects Minami-senju in the Arakawa ward and Senju-hashido-cho in the Adachi ward. It was originally constructed in 1594, and it has a long history. It is said to have been positioned more upstream than the present bridge and was located the most upstream among the five bridges over the Sumida River built during the Edo period (1603 to 1868). It was never damaged by flood runoff during the 300-year history of the Edo period, which suggests that the bridge was extremely sturdy. Artists such as an ukiyo-e artist, Hiroshige Utagawa, illustrated the bridge in nishiki-e prints, and a haiku poet, Basho Matsuo, seemed to have chosen the bridge as the starting point of his trip to the north of Japan, about which he wrote in his book, ”Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).” The present iron bridge is a braced-rib tied arch bridge, 92.5 meters in length and 24.2 meters in width, and was constructed in 1927. A mural illustrating the preface, Tabidachi (Departure), of ”Oku no Hosomichi” has been installed on the bridge guard platform. The bridge is regarded as a historical civil engineering structure.