Railway accommodation bridge 60m south of Dene Beck, Coatham Mundeville, Darlington

Summary

Railway underbridge spanning a farm track, engineered by George Stephenson for the 1825 opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

Description

Railway underbridge by George Stephenson for the Stockton & Darlington Railway, 1825, subsequently modified.

MATERIALS: ashlar sandstone with C20 brick-built wing walls.

DESCRIPTION: the east and west elevations are effectively identical. It is a single-span bridge 10.5 feet wide (3.2m) carrying the railway over a farm track. The bridge carries a single railway line, but formally carried a dual-tracked line, being 21.5 feet (6.55m) between the low parapets. The bridge has a semi-circular arch of voussoirs with a roll-moulded arch-ring stringcourse. The base of the low parapet is marked with a horizontal, squared stringcourse; the parapet having terminals that are square in plan. Projecting out from either side of the bridge, immediately flanking the arch, are C20 replacement brick-built wing walls retaining the sides of the embankment.

History

Acts of Parliament passed in 1821 and 1823 granted the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) powers to compulsorily purchase the land required to build its railway, but also placed several obligations on the company. One of these obligations was the requirement to provide bridges, not only for public roads, but also for landowners whose land was divided by embankments or cuttings for the line. The number and cost of providing these additional bridges, known as accommodation and occupation bridges, was underestimated and placed a considerable strain on company finances before the railway opened for business in 1825. The accommodation bridge 60m south of Dene Beck is an example, providing access through the railway embankment probably for Stanley Farm just over 200m to the south-east.

Through its willingness to share information with visiting engineers and railway promoters, the S&DR was highly influential in the establishment of other early railways both in England and abroad. A significant part of this influence was the line's Chief Engineer, George Stephenson (1781-1848) who also established the world’s first locomotive works with his son Robert (1803-1859) with finance from S&DR board members. Stephenson also went on to engineer many other railways including the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (opened 1830), and was popularly regarded as ‘the Father of the Railways’. One of the approaches that Stephenson took to engineering rail routes was to make them as straight and level as possible, despite the added expense of having to construct cuttings and embankments with their attendant bridges and culverts. This resulted in Stephenson realigning the original, rather circuitous route that had been planned by George Overton (1774-1827) which had been authorised by the 1821 Act of Parliament. Stephenson’s straighter route, including the crossing of Dene Beck and Myers Flat, necessitated a second Act of Parliament, this being passed in 1823.

The form of the bridge with its smoothly dressed ashlar stonework, and the semi-circular arch of voussoirs with a roll-moulded stringcourse arch ring, matches that used for the S&DR bridge over the Hummer Beck south of West Auckland. It is also similar to the design of the nearby Dene Beck Culvert. All these three structures are considered to have been built for the opening of the railway in 1825. There are some indications in the stonework of the arch vault that the bridge was widened, although unlike the other bridges along this section of the line, there is no documentary evidence of widening taken place when the railway was dualed in 1833. Map depictions of the bridge south of Dene Beck, from the 1839 Dixon Plan of the S&DR and first edition Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1856) all show the bridge with straight-sided wing walls projecting outwards almost at right angles relative to the line of the track. The sketches of the bridge on the North Eastern Railway line diagram (circa 1900) show the wing walls as aligning directly with the jambs of the archway, but with a curving batter to their tops to align with the end piers of the parapet. The current brick-built wing walls (appearing to be late C20 or early C21) are thus likely to have replaced rather than covered up the original wing walls (which were presumably stone-built).

Reasons for Listing

The railway accommodation bridge 60m south of Dene Beck is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a rare surviving accommodation bridge built for the 1825 opening of the pioneering and internationally influential Stockton & Darlington Railway;

* the arch is a good example of Georgian masonry construction characteristic of the early railway.

Historic interest:
* it demonstrates George Stephenson’s influential approach to railways, employing extensive engineering to build routes that were as straight and level as possible.

Group value:
* it is similar to, but slightly more architecturally elaborate than, the contemporary Dene Beck Culvert 60m to the north.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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