Blue Bridge

SP 84 SW 891/7/10001 23-MAY-01

MILLERS WAY Wolverton Blue Bridge

II

Railway over bridge. 1834-5 for the London and Birmingham Railway, chief engineer Robert Stephenson; extended 1878-82 by the London and North Western Railway. The original bridge is built of coursed, squared, rock-faced limestone and blue engineering brick. Three elliptical arches with stone imposts and blue brick arch rings. Stone facing to the bridge up to a continuous brick band supporting brick parapet walls and part original stone and part concrete coping. The extension bridge is built to a larger scale with twin segmental arches with a band over, flanked by pilasters, and with a continuous stone roll mould which is stepped down with the parapet a the far end of the bridge. History: The London and Birmingham Railway was opened in this section in September 1838. It became a part of the London and North Western Railway in 1846. The original line was engineered by Robert Stephenson but this bridge, built as an accommodation bridge for Stacey Hill farm, is not built of brick as many of the major structures were, but of stone probably taken from the cutting it spans. The bridge was extended in the period 1878-82 when Wolverton works were by-passed by a new main line and it is this later bridge which continues to cross the running lines of the West Coast Main Line. The whole bridge is now out of use having been by-passed by the adjacent Millers Way bridge in the late C20. Blue Bridge is an interesting example of a first phase L & B bridge developed in a second phase and because all the first phase bridges over the running lines were rebuilt when the line was electrified in 1958. It is thus possibly a unique survivor of a minor London and Birmingham Railway accommodation bridge from the 1830s. References: M A Bird, The Development of Wolverton, Buckinghamshire from Railway Town to New City (1838-1974), Goldsmiths College dissertation, 1974 (Wolverton Library). Bill West, The Trainmakers, The Story of Wolverton Works, 1838-1981. Bill West, Wolverton Works in Camera, 1838-1993. Information from Milton Keynes Borough Council.

Listing NGR: SP8229740389