Gatehampton Railway Bridge, otherwise referred to as Gatehampton Viaduct,
is a
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
carrying the
Great Western Main Line
The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the or ...
over the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
in
Lower Basildon
Lower Basildon is a small English village in the civil parish of Basildon, near Pangbourne, in the county of Berkshire.
Amenities Shops and restaurants
Upper Basildon has a sub-post office (located in St Stephen's Church) and a pub-restaurant ...
,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
,
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 b ...
. It takes the line between the stations at
Goring and Streatley and
Pangbourne
Pangbourne is a large village and civil parish on the River Thames in Berkshire, England. Pangbourne has its own shops, schools, a railway station on the Great Western main line and a village hall. Outside its grouped developed area is an in ...
, and crosses the Thames on the reach between
Whitchurch Lock
Whitchurch Lock is a lock and weir on the River Thames in England. It is a pound lock, built by the Thames Navigation Commissioners in 1787. It is on an island near the Oxfordshire village of Whitchurch-on-Thames and is accessible only by b ...
and
Goring Lock
Goring Lock is a lock and weir situated on the River Thames in England at the Goring Gap in the Chiltern Hills. The lock is located on the Oxfordshire bank at Goring-On-Thames, with Streatley, Berkshire on the opposite side of the river. ...
.
The western viaduct is the older of the two, having been engineered by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...
and was constructed at the same time as
Maidenhead Railway Bridge
Maidenhead Railway Bridge, also known as Maidenhead Viaduct and The Sounding Arch, carries the Great Western Main Line (GWML) over the River Thames between Maidenhead, Berkshire and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a single structure o ...
and
Moulsford Railway Bridge
Moulsford Railway Bridge, also known locally as "Four Arches" bridge, is a pair of parallel bridges located a little to the north of Moulsford and South Stoke in Oxfordshire, UK. It carries the Great Western Main Line from Paddington, London t ...
. It was built between 1838 and 1840, opening later that same year. A second phase of work, conducted between 1890 and 1893, involved the construction of the east relief bridge along with the refurbishment of the west bridge. They have become prominent manmade features of the local riverside landscape; on 19 June 1984, they became formally protected as a
Grade II listed structure
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 Irel ...
.
History
The Gatehampton Railway Bridge is actually two individual viaducts running parallel to one another, sharing cutwaters.
The ''west'' or ''fast'' viaduct was the first to be constructed, being a part of the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
's (GWR) original route between
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
. The line was authorised during 1835 by an
Act of Parliament
Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
, while construction commenced during the following year.
The bridge was designed by the noted civil engineer
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...
, who served as the lead engineer of the line for the GWR, to carry the main line over the River Thames. Brunel's chosen route, designed to be as direct and level as possible, required the line to cross the River Thames twice in the narrow Goring Gap, west of Reading, necessitating the construction of two bridges at Gatehampton and Moulsford.
At Gatehampton, Brunel opted to build a masonry bridge. This structure largely conformed with the typical architectural idioms of the era while featuring aesthetically pleasing detailing.
His decision to adopt track
broad gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways.
Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...
for the line necessitated the bridge's width of 30 feet to accommodate a pair of lines. Construction of the viaduct took place between 1838 and 1840.
As a means of reducing the mass of the bridge and its foundations, which reduced material, time and cost alike, Brunel using a system of internal longitudinal walls and voids to lighten the superstructure above the arches, reduced the forces acting through the structure. Opened to traffic shortly thereafter, the line quickly became a busy trunk route.
By the 1870s, it was clear that more capacity along the line was needed to meet demand, especially towards the London end of the route.
The GWR's management decided to widen the line from two to four tracks wherever reasonable to do so. This work was carried out in two stages, between London and Taplow in 1875–1884, and between Taplow and Didcot in 1890–1893; around this same time period, the original broad gauge tracks were progressively phased out, the line being converted to
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...
instead.
To carry the additional two tracks, between 1890 and 1893, the ''east'' or ''relief'' viaduct was constructed. This extension work was designed with great respect for the existing structure, deliberately featuring little variation from Brunel's design; the west viaduct was also partly refaced around this period.
On 19 June 1984,
Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...
recognised Gatehampton Bridge as a historic feature, designated it as a
Grade II listed structure
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 Irel ...
. The reasoning for this protection included its age, dating back to the pioneering phase of the GWR, Brunel's involvement, and its engineering and material interest, observing the bridge's elliptical-arched design to be elegant and the brickwork to be of a high standard, with relatively little alteration from its original design since the 1890s.
Design
![Train on the Gatehampton Viaduct](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Train_on_the_Gatehampton_Viaduct.jpg)
The each of the two bridges consist of four low semi-elliptical arches, having a combined length of 120 meters and a width of 18 meters.
The arches rise from water level from round cutwaters moulded in
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
and featuring a square span of 62 foot (19 meters). In relation to the river below, the bridge is noticeably
skew
Skew may refer to:
In mathematics
* Skew lines, neither parallel nor intersecting.
* Skew normal distribution, a probability distribution
* Skew field or division ring
* Skew-Hermitian matrix
* Skew lattice
* Skew polygon, whose vertices do not ...
ed, using step-outs on each bank with raked and slightly splayed abutments.
The bridge is primarily composed of red brick, laid in English bond with Bramley Fall
gritstone
Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for pa ...
dressings. It features a plain, shallow stepped string-course along with several tie plates.
Several changes of the structure have been performed over time. The arch voussoirs, which were originally composed of stone, have been replaced with brick counterparts.
Repairs to the structure have largely used red engineering bricks, somewhat similar to the original brickwork. The later-built eastern bridge is largely similar to the western structure; one difference is the presence of stone roll moulding around the arch rings, there are also no refuges or railings installed.
In comparison, the parapets of the western bridge have stone coping with rounded edges, broken by open steel refuges over every pier, along with steel railings along the top of the parapet.
See also
*
Crossings of the River Thames
The River Thames is the second-longest river in the United Kingdom, passes through the capital city, and has many crossings.
Counting every channel – such as by its islands linked to only one bank – it is crossed by over 300 brid ...
References
External links
Gatehampton Railway Bridge via geograph.org.uk
{{Brunel
Railway bridges in Berkshire
Railway bridges in Oxfordshire
Great Western Main Line
Bridges across the River Thames
Bridges completed in 1838
Bridges by Isambard Kingdom Brunel