Bull Bridge (SPC8 47)

Bridge and retaining walls built in 1837 for the North Midland Railway to the designs of George and Robert Stephenson with Frederick Swanwick, with a renewed deck dating to the first half of the C20. The C20 span of steel-plate girders is not of special interest.

MATERIALS: coursed quarry-faced Derbyshire gritstone with ashlar dressings. The span of riveted steel-plate girders does not have special interest and is excluded from the listing.

EXTERIOR: the bridge consists of riveted steel-plate girders, supported by gritstone abutments and long retaining walls either side of the line in both directions. The soffit of the span has narrow, concrete arches between the girders. Both faces of the bridge are similar. The abutments project as broad piers that have v-jointed picked quoins with dressed margins. From the springing point upward these piers are treated as tall ashlar pedestals with a plinth, dado and simple stepped cornice. The massive retaining walls extend either side of the tracks for c.100m to the north on both sides and for c.150m to the south on the east side only, alongside the A610. The walls are battered and have a prominent string course of quarry-faced stone with dressed margins at impost level. Above this is a course of punched stone, corresponding to the plinth of the pier, followed by a parapet of decreasing courses of quarry-faced stone with a bull-nosed and quarry-faced coping. The parapet of the west retaining walls has been reduced by a number of courses and replaced with narrow ashlar coping and metal railings.

Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the C20 span of steel-plate girders is not of special architectural or historic interest.