Railway underbridge MVL3/25, Oaklands Road, Uppermill, Oldham

Summary

Railway underbridge for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway. Mid-late 1840s by A S Jee.

Description

Railway underbridge for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway. Mid-late 1840s by A S Jee.

MATERIALS: cast and wrought iron, rusticated and ashlar sandstone (shale grit/Kinderscout grit/millstone grit) with ashlar dressings.

DESCRIPTION: the bridge is located on the east side of the rural village of Grasscroft. It is a skew, girder bridge carrying the two-track railway line over a bend in the road below. The angled abutments have semi-octagonal piers and are constructed of squared, rusticated stone blocks with chamfered edges to emphasize the joints. The piers rise to track level where there is an ashlar band, above which there are slightly narrower octagonal parapet piers. The parapet piers are constructed of picked ashlar blocks with tooled margins and deep horizontal joints. The abutment stonework courses through to gently curving and angled wing walls with square-moulded ashlar coping. The wing walls terminate in octagonal piers.

The bridge has cast-iron panels forming the parapet balustrades with a relief pattern of closely-spaced Gothic arcading. The balustrades are supported on deep cast-iron fascia beams with small, relief flower rivets. The bridge deck has two separate spans with riveted wrought-iron or steel beams carrying transverse joists and riveted iron plate jack arches.

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.

This underbridge carries the railway over Oaklands Road. It was designed by A S Jee and dates to the construction of the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway between 1845 and 1849 (it is depicted and named on the first edition 1:10,560 OS map surveyed between 1848 and 1850 and published in 1854).

Reasons for Listing

The underbridge MVL3/25, Oaklands Road, Grasscroft, constructed in the mid-late 1840s by A S Jee for the Huddersfield & Manchester Railway, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic Interest:

* constructed during the heroic age of railway building and a little altered example of an 1840s underbridge on what is now one of the main railway lines in northern England;

* designed by the notable railway engineer Alfred Stanistreet Jee.

Architectural Interest:

* as a well-designed bridge, whose craftsmanship of the stone-masonry and attention to architectural detail in its use of octagonal ashlar parapet piers with balustrades of decorative cast-iron panels of Gothic arcading and semi-octagonal piers to the angled stone abutments lifts it above the purely functional.

Group value:

* architecturally inter-related with the other listed structures designed by A S Jee on the Huddersfield & Manchester line.

External Links

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