More Bridges

River Petterill
(Part 15)

Something that fascinates me as I follow a river is the number of bridges that have been constructed at different times and for different reasons. In a short space there are three road bridges over the Petterill, all to allow a local road over the river, and sometimes the railway as well.

The top one here is Catterlen Bridge and accommodates both the river and the railway. It is the one that I was standing on to take the previous picture a few days ago and is obviously much older and shows a very different way of coping with the situation. The lower one is Kitchenhill Bridge, just a little further on, and it can be seen that the two old bridges are of a similar style, made of red sandstone with low arches and a solid parapet. With the Catterlen Bridge, it would seem that the railway engineers decided, either to adapt the existing river bridge to accommodate the railway as well, or they started again but used a similar style to the bridge they replaced. I can’t decide which they did, although I feel the latter is most likely.