LYME — Edgell Bridge, a historic covered bridge on River Road in Lyme, will close next Wednesday, Oct. 23, for repairs that are expected to take about four months to complete.

The closure comes as Lyme residents — and commuters — are already contending with detours and increased traffic from two other infrastructure projects: Repairs to the Lyme/East Thetford bridge on Route 113 over the Connecticut River and ledge work being done on Interstate 91 southbound between exits 16 and 15 in Fairlee.

Some residents have voiced concerns about Lyme/East Thetford bridge being closed at the same time as the Edgell Bridge, Lyme Town Administrator Dina Cutting said. The Lyme/East Thetford bridge is expected to reopen Nov. 15, about a month later than anticipated.

“Sometimes we have inconveniences to make things safe and we want to save this bridge just like the one from Thetford to Lyme,” she said. “It’s a tough thing, but it’s certainly not going to be a year and a half for this bridge.”

The Edgell Bridge, which was built in 1885 and is on the National Register of Historic Places, spans Clay Brook, a Connecticut River tributary. River Road residents who live south of Edgell Bridge can use Breck Hill Road to get to their homes while residents who live north will need to take Route 10 to the north side of River Road.

“There really is no detour,” Lyme Police Chief Shaun J. O’Keefe said. “It’s a detour for people who live on that road, but it’s not a detour for normal traffic.”

Commuters will often take River Road to North Thetford Road to bypass Route 10, which runs through Lyme Village and the Lyme School school zone.

“It’s just a cutoff really,” O’Keefe said. He did not have numbers for how many people use River Road.

Loren Wehmeyer, property manager of Home on the Connecticut, said guests at the River Road inn — which provides housing for traveling health care workers and seasonal employees, among others — can expect to add roughly five minutes to their routes to and from their lodgings.

“I think the biggest inconvenience for us will be the period of time when both bridges are down,” Wehmeyer said, noting that the bridge is around three-fourths of a mile from Home on the Connecticut. “I love that New Hampshire values its covered bridges and they’re taking the time to care for this one because in the end what’s good for business is a great sense of place and those bridges provide that.”

During March Town Meeting Lyme voters approved the $690,000 price tag for the Edgell Bridge repairs which include replacing its deck and roof. Among the funding sources are $250,000 from the Bridge Capital Reserve Fund and $188,589 from the unexpended fund balance.

The article approved by voters also called for raising around $62,000 in donations. Taxpayers were originally supposed to be on the hook for $190,000, but the town received thousands of dollars in private donations to put toward the project, which should help offset the amount to be raised by taxes, Cutting said. The town benefited from a National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges fundraising campaign for the bridge, which was launched last spring.

“The reason why ... I believe it was so successful is because it’s a wooden historical bridge and there’s many people who have certainly expressed that this bridge is special and something they want to keep repaired,” Cutting said.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.