New Road Bridge (SPC8 27)

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 and squared Coal Measure sandstone with tooled ashlared Derbyshire gritstone dressings. The soffit of the arch is of skew-set red brick laid in English bond.

EXTERIOR: the single segmental arch conforms to the standard dimensions of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges, with a span of 30 feet and, originally, a height of 16 feet. It has v-channelled, rusticated voussoirs that spring from impost bands and radiate into the spandrels. The inner side of the bridge has coursed quarry-faced sandstone, a chamfered plinth, and gritstone impost bands with a course of diagonal set springers from which rises the skew-set red brick of the soffit. On the face of the bridge, beneath the impost bands, the abutments are faced with coursed quarry-faced sandstone, with ashlar quoins, resting on a chamfered plinth. They are angled out to meet the flanking piers under a pitched coping. The projecting piers have a concave rake and quoins. Above the arch is a gritstone cornice consisting of a narrow ashlar course, a bold roll moulding and a broad ashlar course with a chamfered top edge. This forms the first course of the parapet which then has a deep course of picked stone with tooled margins. On the inner (road) side the parapets consist of a half course and one giant course of sandstone, rusticated and v-jointed with a picked surface. The square-moulded gritstone coping stones are tooled and have a slight fall to the outside edge.