More information : An application to list the railway bridge on Butt Lane in Wymondham has been received. The applicant is particularly concerned to preserve the bridge parapets. The girder supporting the bridge is causing the bridge to fail, and the bridge is therefore due to be demolished, with work starting on 3 January 2011. Leicestershire Highways have proposed replacing the brick parapets with 2m high close-boarded fencing and crash barriers.
The Bridge is a girder bridge built of brick with buttresses and brick parapets. When the Bourne to Saxby extension of the Midland Railway was opened in 1892 the village of Wymondham played an important part in the opening up of the trade route from Lincolnshire through to the Midlands. The railway not only carried passengers, cattle, sheep and foodstuffs but limestone and iron ore from the Rutland/Leicestershire border area in large quantities right up until the closure of the railway in the 1960s. It left an architectural heritage in Wymondham, of which the bridge in Butt Lane is just a part. One building associated with the railway in Wymondham is listed; the Navvies Cottage, at Grade II. The Navvies Cottage is located to the north-west of the bridge with the station building still present to the west. The station has been converted into a house, and the loading shed and weigh bridge remain.
The English Heritage Selection Guide for listing Transport Buildings outlines how railway buildings and structures fall into three broad categories. First, there are the new building types, invented specifically for the railways. Second, there are engineering works such as tunnels with their portals, cuttings and their retaining walls, bridges and viaducts. Third, there are building types that were adapted for railway use: these include warehouses, offices, engine and goods sheds, carriage works, stables and railway workers' housing. Pre-1840 buildings and structures will be of international significance as being among the earliest railway structures in the world, and even partial survivals need to be assessed carefully. Rigorous selection is required for buildings after c.1860: this reflects both the quantity of what remains and the standardisation of design. Most pre-1840 bridges, where intact, will warrant serious consideration for listing. The explosion of transport projects for turnpikes, canals and railways created the need for standardised and less spectacular bridges: for these, greater selection will be required. The first major use of steel in British bridges is the Forth Bridge (1890) and it came to predominate in the 20th Century in the form of box girder and suspension bridges. The railway bridge at Butt Lane in Wymondham is present on the 1904 Ordinance Survey map, but its date of construction is not known.
The railway bridge at Wymondham dates from a period of massive extension in the railway network where many railway buildings survive. The bridge is functional in appearance and lacks decorative detailing, and therefore does not reach the level of special architectural and historic interest in a national context required to merit listing. (1) |