King Street Bridge (SPC8 28)

The King Street Bridge, built between 1836 and 1840, is a single-span skew overbridge originally constructed for the North Midland Railway to the designs of George and Robert Stephenson, with contributions from Frederick Swanwick. The bridge was widened in the 1970s.

The south side of the bridge is constructed from coursed and squared Coal Measure sandstone, with ashlar Derbyshire gritstone dressings. It features a single segmental arch, originally 30 feet in span and 16 feet high, built to the standard design of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges. The arch's ashlar voussoirs radiate into the spandrels and arise from impost bands seated on quoins. The inner side of the arch reveals courses of quarry-faced stone with another impost band from which arises a brick soffit. Slightly projecting quoins flank the arch, returning at right angles to form coursed and quarry-faced wing walls that terminate in quoins where they meet the listed cutting walls. The cornice comprises a narrow ashlar course, a roll moulding, and a broader ashlar course with a chamfered top edge. A similar roll moulding runs along the cutting walls, unifying the design. The parapet has two courses of stone with a punched surface and square-moulded coping stones, tool-finished with a slight outward slope. The inner face of the parapet shows three courses with a picked surface. The parapet wall curves where the High Street meets Midland View, gradually descending to connect with the cutting walls. This side of the bridge is architecturally integrated with the Grade II-listed cutting walls located between it and New Road Bridge.

Around 1973, the bridge was extended on its north side with a flat concrete deck, 48 metres long and consisting of 30 beams. This deck rests on raked abutment walls faced with coursed quarry-faced stone and quoins. These abutments, along with the underside walls, likely date to either the 1830s, when the railway line was driven through Belper, or the 1870s, when the station underwent rebuilding (though subsequently altered beyond that point). Narrow concrete blocks support the bridge's concrete lintel, which features a single groove along its lower half. A red brick parapet, built in stretcher bond with a concrete coping, runs along the top. The parapets terminate in curved, stepped stone wing walls that likely incorporate re-used stone from around 1840 cutting walls due to their matching tooling.

Under section 1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, the extended concrete section of the King Street Bridge, which now carries a parade of shops and a car park, is excluded from group value and is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.