King Street Bridge (Spc8 28)

Heritage listing

Details A single-span skew overbridge built in 1836-40 for the North Midland Railway to the designs of George and Robert Stephenson with Frederick Swanwick, and widened in the 1970s. MATERIALS: the south side is faced in coursed and squared Coal Measure sandstone with ashlar Derbyshire gritstone dressings. The north side has abutments of Coal Measure sandstone and a deck and parapet of reinforced concrete and red brick. EXTERIOR: the bridge carries King Street over the railway tracks. The south side has a single segmental arch that conforms to the standard dimensions of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges, with a span of 30 feet and, originally, a height of 16 feet. The ashlar voussoirs radiate into the spandrels and spring from impost bands which rest on quoins. On the inner side of the arch are courses of quarry-faced stone with an impost band from which springs the brick soffit. The abutment has slightly projecting quoins flanking the arch before returning at right angles to form coursed and quarry-faced wing walls which terminate in quoins where they meet the listed cutting walls. The cornice consists of a narrow ashlar course, a bold roll moulding and then a broad ashlar course with a chamfered top edge. The roll moulding continues along the cutting walls to unify the different elements. The parapet has two courses of stone with punched surfaces and square-moulded coping stones which are tooled and have a slight fall to the outside edge. The inside face of the parapet has three courses with a picked surface. The parapet wall is rounded where it turns from the High Street to Midland View and it ramps downwards to meet the cutting walls. This side of the bridge abuts and is architecturally integrated with the Grade II-listed cutting walls between it and New Ro

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.