Handyside Bridge, also known as Derwent Bridge, is a former railway bridge in

Darley Abbey Darley Abbey is a former historic mill village, now a suburb of the city of Derby, England. It is located approximately north of the city centre, on the west bank of the River Derwent, and forms part of the Darley ward along with Little Che ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the no ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

which was converted to a foot bridge in 1976 following closure of the railway in 1968. Named for its builders, Andrew Handyside & Co., it is a

tied-arch bridge A tied-arch bridge is an arch bridge in which the outward horizontal forces of the arch(es) caused by tension at the arch ends to a foundation are countered by equal tension of its own gravity plus any element of the total deck structure such gre ...

constructed from riveted

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...

and is situated at the entrance to Darley Park in

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gain ...

. It spans the River Derwent and was part of the Great Northern Railway Derbyshire Extension popularly known as the (Derby) Friargate Line. The next station to the south was which has another bridge built by Andrew Handyside.

History

The bridge was built by

Andrew Handyside and Company Andrew Handyside and Company was an iron founder in Derby, England, in the nineteenth century. Biography Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1805, Handyside worked in his uncle Charles Baird's engineering business in St. Petersburg before tak ...

in 1878 when the

Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension The Derbyshire and Staffordshire extension of the Great Northern Railway was an English railway network built by the GNR to get access to coal resources in the area to the north and west of Nottingham. The Midland Railway had obstructed the GNR in ...

of the Great Northern Railway reached Derby. Designed by

Richard Johnson Richard or Dick Johnson may refer to: Academics * Dick Johnson (academic) (1929–2019), Australian academic * Richard C. Johnson (1930–2003), professor of electrical engineering * Richard A. Johnson, artist and professor at the University of ...

, the GNR's chief engineer for the extension, it consists of a single span of , high at the centre, supported by two bow-shaped wrought iron trusses. The design avoided the need for a supporting pier in the river, keeping the Derwent clear for navigation. During construction a test was carried out to prove the bridge would hold the weight of the expected rail traffic, in which Handyside successfully ran six

locomotives A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; th ...

with a combined weight of 432 tons across it.Handyside Bridge Sign
Derby City Council, 2010 The bridge carried trains from 1878 to 1968, with the last passenger train crossing on 5 September 1964 and the last goods train May 1968 by the

Stephenson Locomotive Society The Stephenson Locomotive Society (SLS) was founded in the UK in Autumn 1909 for the study of rail transport and locomotives. More recently, on 1 January 2017, the SLS became a private company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wale ...

, when the branch was closed by the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

. The deck, which used to carry the track, is suspended from steel segmental arches of a lattice construction, with stone abutments. When the bridge was built a

Cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

pedestrian footpath was attached to its North-side to allow workers to cross. This was removed in 1978. The Handyside-owned Britannia

Foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals ...

works were 200 metres downstream of the bridge and were served by sidings connected to the mainline via a

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

. This spur allowed products from the foundry to be transported by goods train. Another substantial business nearby was the refrigeration business of Sir

Alfred Seale Haslam Sir Alfred Seale Haslam (27 October 1844 – 13 January 1927) was an English engineer who was Mayor of Derby from 1890 to 1891, three times Mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1900 to 1906. ...

. The bridge was designated a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

on 2 March 1976 and now forms part of the

Derwent Valley Mills Derwent Valley Mills is a World Heritage Site along the River Derwent in Derbyshire, England, designated in December 2001. It is administered by the Derwent Valley Mills Partnership. The modern factory, or 'mill', system was born here in the 1 ...

World Heritage Site. The next bridge downstream to cross over the River Derwent is Saint Mary's Bridge which is 448 metres away and the next bridge upstream Haslam's Lane Toll bridge which is 1,541 metres away.

Images

References

External links

{{Commons category, Handyside Bridge
Derwent Valley Mills in Derbyshire WHSShort film with still photos of The BridgeThe Derby Friargate Line Route
Bridges completed in 1877 Bridges in Derby Grade II listed bridges Tied arch bridges in the United Kingdom Former railway bridges in the United Kingdom Bridges across the River Derwent, Derbyshire 1877 establishments in England

History

Images

See also

References

External links