Railway accommodation underbridge MVL3/26, Footway

Accommodation underbridge for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway. Mid-late 1840s for the railway line with A S Jee as lead engineer.

MATERIALS: rock-faced and ashlar sandstone (shale grit/Kinderscout grit/millstone grit).

DESCRIPTION: the skew accommodation bridge carries the two-line railway track over a footpath which slopes steeply down towards the south. The bridge has deep, segmental arches with stepped voussoirs and slightly taller keystones. The v-jointed voussoirs are of picked ashlar with tooled margins. They spring from an ashlar impost band with similarly detailed ashlar quoins to the bridge abutments, which are otherwise constructed of coursed, rock-faced stone blocks, as are the spandrels. The bridge soffit is constructed of smaller, skew-coursed, dressed ashlar blocks. The bridge arches are framed by slightly projecting piers of rock-faced stone. The ashlar parapets encompass the archway and the piers and have a slightly projecting, square-moulded band with deeper panels above. The curved wing walls are constructed of coursed, rock-faced stone blocks with square-moulded ashlar coping.