Matlock Road Bridge (SPC8 35)

A single-span skew overbridge built in 1836-40 for the North Midland Railway to the designs of George and Robert Stephenson with Frederick Swanwick.

MATERIALS: coursed quarry-faced Derbyshire Gritstone with tooled ashlar dressings. The soffit of the arch is skew-set red brick.

EXTERIOR: the north face is almost identical to the south face. It has a single segmental arch that conforms to the standard dimensions of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges with a height of 16 feet from the rails and a span of 30 feet. The arch has v-channelled rusticated ashlar voussoirs that return on the soffit as quoins. The soffit is of skew-set red brick rising from an impost band with diagonally set stone springers supported by courses of quarry-faced stone on a chamfered plinth. The arch is flanked by broad projecting piers which have a concave rake and v-channelled rusticated quoins. The abutments are angled out to meet the piers, under an extension of the impost band, shaped as a pitched cap stone to shed water. On either side of the piers, the wing walls are faced with coursed quarry-faced stone. They have a concave rake and curve to follow the alignment of the approach roads before terminating in sizeable semi-octagonal piers. The west wing walls are more substantial because the approach road is built up on this side. The bridge has a bold ashlar roll moulding and a parapet of two tall courses, the lower of tooled ashlar with margins and a chamfered top edge, and the higher of stone with a punched finish and dressed margins. The square-moulded coping is tooled and has a slight fall to the outside edge. The inside faces of the parapets have one and a half courses of picked stone.