Long Eaton Canal Bridge (SPC6 20)

A two-span skew underbridge, built c.1837-40 to the designs of Charles Vignoles for the Midland Counties Railway, partly reconstructed by the Midland Railway in 1848 and 1905.

MATERIALS: coursed quarry-faced sandstone walling with tooled gritstone dressings. The west span has steel plate and trussed lattice girders, and the east span has a red-brick soffit, patched with blue engineering brick.

EXTERIOR: the two-span bridge carries the railway over the Erewash Canal and tow path, and the farm track to the east. The west side of the bridge has a single span, replaced in 1905, consisting of three riveted steel girders, between which are straight steel braces and gusset plates. The abutments, which survive from the original structure, are of coursed quarry-faced sandstone. The inside abutment walls have a gritstone string course with chamfered upper edges, and a sloping sandstone course above. The ends of the girders rest on a large, slightly projecting gritstone block with a chamfered upper edge. On the north face, the abutments have parapets of three sandstone courses with a flat coping of gritstone. These parapets have been truncated slightly by the renewal of the span. The north-west abutment has a splayed and raked wing wall falling from the height of the string course, which carries through as its coping.

The east span has a single segmental arch of v-channelled, quarry-faced sandstone voussoirs with tooled margins. The voussoirs finish as quoins on the arch soffit that springs from gritstone impost bands and is of skew set red brick, patched in blue engineering brick. Four cast-iron girders are set into the soffit between blocks of picked gritstone with tooled margins. The arch is flanked by raked abutments. The north face of the bridge has a gritstone string course above the voussoirs. This supports the parapet which comprises three sandstone courses with flat gritstone coping. On the east side, the structure ends at a perpendicular junction between the abutment and a masonry wall, the lower section of which may be contemporary as it is of coursed quarry-faced sandstone. The missing end section of the string course shows where a stepway was removed before 1965: the parapet and coping above have been rebuilt. The south face of the east span differs slightly due to the alterations made when the line-side footpath was added. The original string course, parapet and coping were replaced with a wide coping course of tooled gritstone with a chamfered upper edge, supported at each end by a pair of curved and tooled gritstone brackets. The arch is flanked by projecting, raked abutments. On the east side, the abutment ends in a projecting pier beyond the splayed and sloping wing wall, which has flat gritstone coping. Both faces of the bridge have late-C19 or C20 metal railings, with a further railing for the line-side footpath on the south side.