Alfreton Road Bridge (SPC8 10)

A three-span skew overbridge carrying the Alfreton Road, built 1836-40 for the North Midland Railway to the designs of George and Robert Stephenson with Frederick Swanwick.

MATERIALS: walling of coursed and squared Coal Measure sandstone with tooled, ashlar Derbyshire Gritstone dressings. The soffits of the arches are of red brick.

DESCRIPTION: the high-mileage (north) face is a mirror image of the low-mileage (south) face. Three segmental arches with rusticated ashlar Gritstone voussoirs springing from impost bands which continue onto the underside of the bridge. The central arch conforms to the standard dimensions of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges, with a span of 30ft and, originally, a height of 16ft. However the outer arches are slightly narrower. They spring from impost bands that project to cap the piers and abutments. These are all of coursed and squared quarry-faced sandstone with plinths and ashlar Gritstone quoins (chamfered to the piers). The bridge is framed by applied piers with a concave rake and rusticated Gritstone quoins; the piers continue upwards as part of the parapet. Running across the face and piers is a Gritstone cornice composed of a narrow, ashlar course, a bold, tooled roll moulding, and then a course of ashlar with a chamfered upper edge. Above it the parapet is of two sandstone courses, which are picked with tooled margins on the outer face but punched on the inner face. This is surmounted by Gritstone coping stones, which are broad, tooled and square-moulded, with a slight fall to the outside edge. The wing walls are of coursed and squared, quarry-faced sandstone, and they are raked and curved; because of the skew, the low-mileage (south) wing wall projects much further on the down (west) side than that on the up (east) side; the opposite is true of the high-mileage (north) wing wall. Marking the termination of the long wing walls are half hexagonal stone piers whilst the short wing walls terminate in raked piers.

Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the tarmacadam road surface of the bridge is not of special architectural or historic interest.