Halton Dial Bridge, HUL4/30

Halton Dial Bridge is a railway skew, basket arch underbridge built around 1830-34 by James Walker of Walker & Burges for the Leeds & Selby Railway.

Constructed from sandstone ashlar and Bramley Fall gritstone, the bridge features a single span designed to accommodate four tracks and the turnpike beneath. It is part of a series of bridges on the Leeds & Selby Railway that share a common design. The bridge is made of squared, coursed, and tooled stone blocks. The basket arch, made of Bramley Fall gritstone, has stepped, tooled, and inscribed v-jointed voussoirs that spring from a wide, horizontally-tooled impost band. The arch soffit consists of large, skew-set stone blocks.

The outer walls of the abutments and straight wing walls are constructed from long, narrow blocks of tooled and inscribed v-jointed sandstone ashlar, while the inner abutment walls are heavily tooled with v-joints. The parapets are made of larger blocks of Bramley Fall gritstone with pronounced horizontal tooling and end in characteristic oval piers. These are set on square-cut, tooled and inscribed string courses with asymmetrically-curved coping that also features horizontal tooling.