Railway overbridge MVL3/107, Colne Bridge (B1168 Bridge Road)

Railway overbridge, 1845-49, designed by A S Jee for the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway; widened by the London and North Western Railway 1881-84.

MATERIALS: squared coursed quarry-faced gritstone, tooled gritstone, and blue engineering brick.

DESCRIPTION: three-span, segmental arched bridge with a smaller fourth arch built over a cutting, with the northern end obscured by the adjacent embankment. The faces of the arches have tooled keyed voussoirs with projecting key stones, with tooled edges resting on slightly projecting ashlar impost bands. The voussoirs project out slightly from the surfaces of the stone block soffits of the arches. The abutments and the spandrels are built of coursed quarry-faced gritstone. The ends of the three railway arches are supported by projecting vertical-faced buttresses. The stone courses in the spandrels are even in height and rise to a slightly projecting quarry-faced string course, supporting a second ashlar course. The string courses to either side of the bridge, act as the base for the parapet walls, with ashlar coping stones that terminate in rectangular stone piers, which break forward from the face of the bridge. A blocked pedestrian gateway is situated towards the northern end of the north-east parapet wall. A plain bay with inclined string courses and parapet walls, separates the railway arches from the smaller southern arch that matches the appearance of the other arches, but is both lower and narrower, and has an arch soffit of blue engineering bricks. The arch is flanked by vertical faced buttresses supporting rectangular stone piers. It has unequal spandrels beneath inclined string courses, supporting the parapet walls. The southern buttresses are partially obscured by curved and canted wing walls, with flat ashlar coping stones terminating in low stone newel posts with capstones.