Gorse Lane Bridge, HUL3/8

Railway basket arch overbridge. 1830-34 by James Walker of Walker & Burges for Leeds & Selby Railway.

MATERIALS: Sandstone ashlar and Magnesium limestone.

PLAN: single-span carrying a road over the railway which has provision to accommodate four tracks.

One of a sequence of bridges on the Leeds & Selby Railway which share a common design. The bridge is built of squared, coursed and tooled sandstone ashlar blocks and squared, coursed and quarry-faced Magnesium limestone blocks. The basket arch of sandstone ashlar has stepped, tooled and inscribed, v-jointed voussoirs springing from a wide, horizontally-tooled impost band. The arch soffit is constructed of large stone blocks. The abutments are of smaller blocks of coursed, quarry-faced Magnesium limestone. The parapets are of larger blocks of sandstone ashlar with pronounced horizontal tooling and terminate in characteristic oval piers. They are set on square-cut, tooled string courses and have asymmetrically-curved coping with horizontal tooling.

EXCLUSIONS: Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ('the Act') it is declared that the C20 railings of horizontal timber planks with metal struts fastened to the stonework of the original parapets are not of special architectural or historic interest.