Tilehurst Road Bridge (BKE3709)

MATERIALS: original handmade red brick with some red engineering brick patching and replacement. English bond. Limestone coping.

DESCRIPTION: the central arch is slightly taller and wider than the side arches. The contract drawings give a span of 38ft 4in and the side arches a span of 31ft 2in. The carriageway is 24ft [7.3m.] wide between parapets, favoured by Brunel for larger road bridges.

Tall tapering piers. Each originally pierced by two tapered transverse arches, now infilled so that they read as blind arches. Abutments/wing walls vertical and gently curved, the north-west abutment with shallow engineering brick buttress of c. 1896. Stepped string course to each face. Parapets stepped on the outer face only and raised in the C20 by four courses of engineering brick above the original stone coping (left in situ), with pitched tile coping topped by small iron anti-climbing spikes. The western (Up) ends of both parapet recently rebuilt in engineering brick, but apparently reusing the original coping in situ, with the north (low mileage) parapet stepping up towards a rectangular brick pier which forms part of the approach to the neighbouring modern steel footbridge. Neither the pier nor the footbridge are part of the historic structure. They abut but are not attached.

The bridge was built in open countryside but is now in the suburbs of Reading. It is not visible in the wider landscape because it is in a cutting and because of topography and existing structures. However, it is mutually visible with the similar Brunel-designed Bath Road Overbridge (BKE3729).