Long Eaton Canal Bridge (SPC6 20)

This is a two-span skew bridge, built around 1837-40 to designs by Charles Vignoles for the Midland Counties Railway. It carries the railway line over the Erewash Canal and towpath, and a farm track to the east. The bridge was partly reconstructed by the Midland Railway in 1848 and 1905.

The bridge is constructed of coursed quarry-faced sandstone walling with tooled gritstone dressings. The western span, replaced in 1905, features three riveted steel girders with straight steel braces and gusset plates. The eastern span has a segmental arch of v-channelled, quarry-faced sandstone voussoirs, with tooled margins, set on gritstone impost bands and a red-brick soffit patched with blue engineering brick. Four cast-iron girders are set into the soffit between blocks of picked gritstone with tooled margins.

The original sandstone abutments survive, with gritstone string courses and chamfered upper edges. The west side has parapets of three sandstone courses with flat gritstone coping. The north-west abutment has a splayed and raked wing wall. The east side has raked abutments and terminates in a masonry wall, potentially contemporary, of coursed quarry-faced sandstone. On the south side, alterations for a line-side footpath resulted in a replacement wide gritstone coping with chamfered edges, supported by curved gritstone brackets. Both sides of the bridge have late 19th or 20th century metal railings, with an additional railing for the footpath on the south side. A stepway was removed before 1965, evidenced by a missing section of string course and subsequent rebuilding of the parapet.