King Street Bridge (SPC8 28)

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, and widened in the 1970s.

MATERIALS: the south side is faced in coursed and squared Coal Measure sandstone with ashlar Derbyshire gritstone dressings. The north side has abutments of Coal Measure sandstone and a deck and parapet of reinforced concrete and red brick.

EXTERIOR: the bridge carries King Street over the railway tracks. The south side has a single segmental arch that conforms to the standard dimensions of the Stephensons’ North Midland overbridges, with a span of 30 feet and, originally, a height of 16 feet. The ashlar voussoirs radiate into the spandrels and spring from impost bands which rest on quoins. On the inner side of the arch are courses of quarry-faced stone with an impost band from which springs the brick soffit. The abutment has slightly projecting quoins flanking the arch before returning at right angles to form coursed and quarry-faced wing walls which terminate in quoins where they meet the listed cutting walls. The cornice consists of a narrow ashlar course, a bold roll moulding and then a broad ashlar course with a chamfered top edge. The roll moulding continues along the cutting walls to unify the different elements. The parapet has two courses of stone with punched surfaces and square-moulded coping stones which are tooled and have a slight fall to the outside edge. The inside face of the parapet has three courses with a picked surface. The parapet wall is rounded where it turns from the High Street to Midland View and it ramps downwards to meet the cutting walls. This side of the bridge abuts and is architecturally integrated with the Grade II-listed cutting walls between it and New Road Bridge (SPC8 27).

The bridge was extended on its north side c.1973 with a flat concrete deck 48m long, formed of 30 beams. This rests on raked abutment walls which are faced with coursed quarry-faced stone and have quoins. The abutments and underside walls date from either the 1830s when the line was driven through Belper or the 1870s when the station was rebuilt in its current location (albeit subsequently rebuilt again). Narrow concrete blocks rest on the abutments and underside walls to support the concrete lintel of the bridge. This has a single indented groove on its lower half and a parapet of red brick laid in stretcher bond with a concrete coping. The parapets terminate in curved and stepped stone wing walls which probably incorporate re-used stone from the c.1840 cutting walls, as they have the same distinctive tooling.

Pursuant to s. 1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ('the Act') it is declared that the extended concrete section of King Street Bridge carrying a parade of shops built c.1973 and a car park to the rear is not of special architectural or historic interest.