Railway overbridge MVL3/103, Colliery Lane (Wheatleys), Huddersfield, Kirklees

Summary

Railway overbridge built 1845-1849, designed by A S Jee for the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway, with an additional span of 1881-1884 for the London and North Western Railway.

Description

Railway overbridge built 1845-1849, designed by A S Jee for the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway, and extended with a second span in 1881-1884.

MATERIALS: squared coursed quarry-faced gritstone and tooled gritstone.

DESCRIPTION: a double-span, segmental arched bridge built over a cutting with the ends obscured by the adjacent embankments. The faces of the arches have tooled keyed voussoirs with projecting key stones, with tooled edges resting on slightly projecting ashlar impost bands. The voussoirs project out slightly from the surfaces of the soffits of the arches. The abutments and the spandrels are built of coursed quarry-faced gritstone. The quoins of the abutments are of quarry-faced stone with tooled edges. The central pier and the ends of the bridge are supported by canted buttresses. The stone courses in the spandrels are even in height and rise to an ashlar string course. The string course to either side of the bridge acts as a base for a parapet wall. Each parapet has ashlar coping stones and terminates in a rectangular stone pier that breaks forward from the face of the bridge. The north-western ends of the parapet walls splay out slightly, while the southern abutment has curved and canted wing walls to either side. The parapets are protected by a triple tubular steel fence with cast-iron fence posts marked - SYDNEY RAINES WAKEFIELD, supported by bolted struts that are recessed into the sides of the coping stones. The bridge deck forms part of the Sustrans National Cycle Route 66 and has been raised and given a tarmacadam surface, with the sides protected by modern steel mesh fencing, supported by steel posts.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 04/12/2018

History

In contrast to the main trunk lines of the late 1830s that were constructed by single railway companies the route from Stalybridge to Leeds had fragmented origins and was the work of three different railway companies: the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway, Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway, and the Manchester & Leeds Railway.

The Huddersfield & Manchester Railway was authorised in 1845 and followed the route of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal for much of its length, including a railway tunnel through the Pennine hills set alongside the earlier Standedge Canal Company tunnel of 1811; in 1846 the railway company also acquired the canal. Joseph Locke and Alfred Stanistreet Jee were appointed to survey and design the new line, the two engineers having already worked together on a major project linking Manchester and Sheffield. Jee became the lead engineer for the Huddersfield line, which passed through challenging terrain, assisted by resident engineers that included his brother Moreland Jee (until 1848) and Herbert F Mackworth. Construction of the line was divided into various contracts, with many contractors being only responsible for a single cutting, viaduct or tunnel portal. The largest contract for the Standedge Tunnel between Diggle and Marsden was let to a single contractor, Thomas Nicholson in 1847. The tunnel's completion in 1849 marked the opening of the line.

The Leeds end of the route, which was also authorised in 1845, was constructed by the Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway. The engineer was Thomas Grainger who had previously largely worked in Scotland, and the line was completed in 1849.

A short three-mile section of the route between Heaton Lodge Junction and Thornhill Junction near Mirfield was developed by the Manchester & Leeds Railway and was constructed between 1837 and 1840, with George Stephenson as the chief engineer. The structures on this line were designed by Thomas Gooch under the oversight of Stephenson. In 1847 the railway company changed its name to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.

In 1847 the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway and the Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway were acquired by the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) so that the company could access the city of Leeds and the textile towns of West Yorkshire. This pitted them as rivals to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, although at points on the route the two companies had to work together. By 1851 the London & North Western Railway had an overall mileage of railway track of 800 miles and it became the most prominent railway company in the country and the largest joint-stock concern in the world in the late C19. Although the LNWR had a general manager, Captain Mark Huish, the lines of the Stalybridge to Leeds route still managed their own affairs. LNWR later carried out expansion works, including the widening of tracks and bridges, the construction of additional tunnels, and station alterations. In 1923 the line became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway, and subsequently part of the nationalised British Railways in 1948. The line, its structures and track are currently (2018) owned by Network Rail, and the passenger services operated by TransPennine Express and Northern Rail.

Colliery Lane Bridge is thought to have been originally built as a single-span overbridge to carry an access road from Bradley to the Colne Bridge Colliery, which was situated between the Huddersfield and Manchester Railway and Sir John Ramsden's Canal. The colliery is depicted on the first edition 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey map of 1854, at which time there were no sidings and the colliery is shown served by coal staiths for loading barges on the canal. The bridge was extended southward to a double-span by the LNWR, between 1881 and 1884, allowing it to cross four tracks. The Midland Railway opened a branch line from Mirfield to Newton Goods Depot Huddersfield in 1910, with the new line crossing the colliery site and the LNWR mainline just south of Colliery Bridge. This line was short-lived and closed in 1937, and since then Colliery Bridge and MR Huddersfield Branch remained largely disused until June 2000 when they were both combined into The Calder Valley Greenway, part of Sustrans National Cycle Route 66, from Manchester to Spurn Head.

Reasons for Listing

Colliery Lane Bridge (Wheatleys) MVL3/103 of 1845-1849, by Alfred Stanistreet Jee for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway, and extended 1881-1884 for the London and North Western Railway. is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* an original 1840s overbridge constructed during the heroic age of railway building on what is now one of the main railway lines in northern England;

* designed by the noted railway engineer Alfred Stanistreet Jee.

Architectural interest:

* a double-span segmental arch bridge;

* sympathetically altered in visually indistinguishable design and detailing.

Group value:

* with the other listed structures designed by Jee on the former Huddersfield & Manchester
Railway line.

External Links

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