Railway Bridge

Details

SLOUGH

236/0/10022 LEIGH ROAD 13-APR-06 Railway bridge

II Railway bridge, 1836-8 with 1878-82 and C20 extensions; Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

MATERIALS: Both arches are semi-elliptical, built in matching London stock brick, with white hydraulic mortar. They have matching brick string courses and dressed gritstone copings. The southern span (1836-8) retains its original southern abutment and approach. The northern span (1878-82) has steeply-angled wing walls. No buttress to central pier. Some C19 and C20 rebuilding of parapets; recent rebuilds of terminal pilasters and north-west and south-east corners.

FAÇADE: The Leigh Road bridge was built in 1836-8 as a standard London stock brick 13ft 6ins wide overbridge for unclassified lanes, with gently-splayed abutments flanking a 30ft-span semi-elliptical arch accommodating two broad-gauge tracks (subsequently two mixed broad-/standard-gauge tracks from 1861 until the abolition of broad gauge in 1892). In 1878-82 during the Slough-Maidenhead quadrupling the northern abutment was largely demolished and the bridge extended to the north with a matching 25ft arched span.

HISTORY: In March 1832 the Bristol Railway company was set up to construct a 118-mile long railway line from London to Bristol. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59), the 26 year-old son of the leading civil engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849) who was already well-regarded in Bristol because of his work on the Clifton Bridge and the City Docks, was appointed the company engineer of what was renamed the Great Western Railway. For the next fifteen years he devoted much of his energy to creating what he intended to be 'the Finest Work in England' (Rolt 1957, 171), an unprecedented service of high-speed passenger transport linking London with south-west England. The main line from London to Bristol was constructed in 1835-41 in eight separate sections using a variety of contractors and some direct labour. The first section to be opened was that from Bishop's Road, London, to Maidenhead Riverside, in the summer of 1838. The whole line, from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads was opened in July 1841. Thereafter extensions followed to Exeter, Plymouth, and Penzance; as the South Wales Railway to Cardiff, Swansea, and Milford Haven; and northward to Gloucester, Oxford, and the Mersey.

Brunel oversaw all aspects of the GWR concept and design which was distinctive and comprehensive: the choice of route, which by careful survey and grading was relatively level and with gentle curves; the adoption of a 'broad gauge' of 7 feet 0 ¼ inch rather than the usual 'narrow gauge' of 4 feet 8 ½ inches to give stability at speed; and the carriage of the line via both showpiece engineering structures (perhaps in-part inspired by John Martin's 'apocalyptic sublime' paintings of the ancient world: Freeman 1999, 74-5) including viaducts at Hanwell and Chippenham, the Box Tunnel, and iron and masonry bridges and more prosaic ones such as the nine bridges under consideration.

Archival study by Dr Brindle has ascertained the Leigh Road bridge formed part of Brunel's contracts 4 L[ondon] and 5L and, like other bridges included therein, was erected between the spring of 1836 and May 1838 when the Paddington-Maidenhead line opened.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Leigh Road bridge retains more of its original 1836-8 fabric than many of the other surviving Brunel bridges on the London to Maidenhead section of the GWR. Overal, despite later extensions, the bridge remains an excellent exemplar of the broad-gauge concept. It is of considerable historic importance for its early Brunel fabric.

SOURCES: S. Brindle, Paddington Station (2005); R. Angus Buchanan, 'Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (1806-1859)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004); M. Freeman, Railways and the Victorian Imagination (1999); L. T. C. Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1957); RPS Planning & Environment, Crossrail: Technical Assessment of Historic Railway Bridges (January 2005); Developing Crossrail: Round 2 Consultation Document August to October 2004.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

494859

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Freeman, M, Railways and the Victorian Imagination, (1999)
Rolt, L T C, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, (1957)
Brindle, S, Paddington Station: Its History and Architecture, (2005)
Buchanan, R, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (1806-1859), (2004)

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