Railway Bridge

Railway Bridge at Brewers Lane

This railway bridge dates to 1841 and was built to carry single-track traffic over the now redundant Fareham to Gosport line of the former London and South Western Railway.

The bridge is constructed mainly of red brick with yellow brick banding and random grey engineering brick. It is symmetrical in design, with battered buttresses on each face either side of an elliptical arch. A dentilled cornice in yellow brick at the base of the outer face of the curving parapet reflects a band of the same brick on the inside of the arch vault, with the latter band being a stretcher course between two header courses. The top courses of each side of the parapet have been repaired with matching red brick and a soldier course coping added, though the original brickwork below is in English bond. The main body of the bridge is also English bond, with the external face of the arch itself formed by header bond and the arch vaulting in stretcher bond with English bond below the decorative banding.

The bridge is contemporary with the construction of the Fareham-Gosport line, which opened on 29 November 1841 as the first railway line in the Portsmouth area. It was a branch of the London and South Western Railway's main London to Southampton route, built to link Portsmouth with London via a short ferry crossing from Gosport station. A direct line from London to Portsmouth itself opened in 1848. The bridge can be attributed to the chief engineer Joseph Locke and the engineering contractor Thomas Brassey or their staff. Locke had been appointed for the construction of the London to Southampton Railway in 1837 and was involved in the Gosport extension from 1839 to 1841. Sir William Tite was the main architect for the London and South Western Railway, though he designed the classically-styled station at Gosport rather than this bridge.

The line was used regularly by Queen Victoria from 1843 until her death in 1901 to travel to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight via Gosport and the adjacent Royal Clarence Yard. The railway was important in developing Gosport as a holiday destination and was particularly popular in the mid-19th century for carrying freight. Its importance for passenger traffic diminished when the route from Fareham to Portsmouth via Cosham opened in 1848. However, it continued to serve the naval victualling and armament yards at Gosport, with this role increasing in 1914 with the onset of war. After declining between the wars, the railway gained importance again during the Second World War, moving supplies, invalided soldiers and prisoners of war. Passenger traffic dwindled after the war and was withdrawn on 8 June 1953. Freight continued until 6 January 1969, after which trains ran only as far as the Bedenham Naval branch. This bridge is the only original structure surviving on this stretch of line; the other three bridges on this section are 1950s and 1960s concrete structures.