Middle Bridge

Middle Bridge, Victoria Street

This is a railway bridge constructed around 1864 in a single span using plate girders with cast iron parapets. The iron girders rest on brick and masonry abutments on either side of the road.

The cast iron parapets are decoratively detailed with a series of bands running from the base, consisting of continuous arches, key patterns, raised panels divided by Ionic pilasters, and foliage swags.

The bridge was built to carry the line to Bolton and Wigan, developed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. It stands immediately to the north of an earlier bridge constructed in 1844 for the Manchester & Leeds Railway Company's trans-Pennine line, which terminated at Victoria Station, then designed by George Stephenson.

By the 1880s Victoria Station had grown into one of the largest passenger stations in the country. When Manchester Exchange Station opened in 1884 on the opposite side of the River Irwell, the 1844 bridge was widened to provide access between the two stations. This created what was the longest passenger platform in Europe, with a canopy over the platform and track that extended through Victoria Station itself.

A third bridge was constructed to the north in 1893 to carry further track between Exchange and Victoria Stations. Exchange Station was severely damaged during the Second World War and closed in 1969. The 1893 bridge became redundant in 1992–4 when the new Arena was built into the north side of Victoria Station. The train shed roof was demolished in 1982, though the canopy survived until 1994 and remnants of the platform still remain on the 1844 bridge.

Middle Bridge is one of three bridges crossing Victoria Street that together form a visually strong group. Its decorative parapet reflects its important location at a railway nexus and demonstrates, with other closely associated structures, the development of Manchester's transport network.