Cremorne Bridge, West London Extension Railway Bridge, Battersea

Cremorne Bridge, West London Extension Railway Bridge, Battersea

A railway bridge built in 1863 by William Baker, Chief Engineer of the London and North Western Railway Company, and T H Bertram of the Great Western Railway. The bridge opened on 2 March 1863. The contractors were Brassey and Ogilvie. Minor alterations and repairs have been undertaken subsequently.

The Cremorne Bridge is a five-span wrought-iron arch bridge with six brick arches on both the Middlesex and Surrey shores. The five river spans are each 43.9 metres, and the total length of the structure is 387.1 metres. The spans are carried on riveted wrought-iron arched ribs arranged in pairs and joined by lattice spandrel members to the deck girders, forming a series of light segmental arches. There are six ribs to each span, arranged in three pairs, with the inner ribs cross-braced under either track. These inner ribs may have been partly replaced and strengthened in steel during the 20th century, but the upper and lower chords and spandrel members of the arches are fabricated wholly of wrought iron. The river piers are constructed of brick faced with Bramley Fall stone ashlar on concrete foundations, carried up in ashlar with roll-moulded cornices at parapet level. The abutment piers of the river bridge are also ashlar. The parapets, topped by wrought iron lattice railings, have recently been refaced as part of a general programme of repairs.

The bridge carries both standard and broad gauge railway tracks needed for Great Western railway stock. Its purpose was to connect the main northbound lines out of Paddington and Euston with the southbound lines from Waterloo, Victoria and Clapham Junction through the West London Extension Railway. This was an enterprise jointly owned by the London and North Western Railway and the Great Western Railway (one-third each), and the London and South Western Railway and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (one-sixth each). The West London Extension Railway was built to connect the Great Western Railway with the Channel Ports via railways on the south side of the Thames such as the South Eastern Railway.

The Cremorne Bridge is one of the earliest railway bridges to cross the Thames and among the earliest surviving examples. The initial phase of railway expansion in the 1840s and 1850s had little impact on the Thames, partly due to a parliamentary prohibition on surface railways in central London. The ban was lifted in 1846, but by that time the distinctive ring of railway termini around central London had been established and there was little financial incentive for companies to link the north and south banks. The first railway crossings were therefore built in outlying districts: the first at Barnes was completed by 1848 and Richmond followed not long after. The fast pace of development south of the river after 1860 led to six further bridges, of which the Cremorne Bridge is one of the earliest that survives in its original form. The bridge has been little altered since 1863, although repairs were made following vessel collisions with the bridge in the early 1990s and in 2003. Of the other bridges, only the southern abutment to the former West Blackfriars and St Paul's railway bridge is listed.

The name Cremorne refers to the former Cremorne pleasure gardens which once occupied the site of the Lots Road Power Station. The gardens closed in 1877. The bridge is also known as Battersea Railway Bridge.