Brunel may have built Bristol to London but the money came from shipowners and merchants who saw it as a means of vastly increasing their profits, even if their initial investment was lost.
Looks to be similar here, Lord Starkie owned a large portion of the town and surrounding area, as did Lord Kay-Shuttleworth. Another portion further South was the property of the Towneley family (Burnley). Certainly as far as the first two Lords were concerned they would welcome and encourage the town to expand, as long as it didn't encroach on to their own private estates.
From their point of view, more buildings means more income from ground rents, leases, sale of land etc. And so I believe this is why Lord Starkie put his hand in his pocket for this new road bridge roughly 155 feet long and 30 wide.
The original road bridge was very old, already in existence by 1755 when the main road through the town became a hated turn pike toll road. This bridge runs North - South however the North end is around 30 feet wide but the Southern end only around twenty. This bridge was part of the turn pike road so you'd have to pay to use it. Two reasons straight off for building a new modern bridge.
By 1844 I can already see four cotton mills established in the North Eastern part of the town, and by 1890 I can see at least 12 clumped together there, all needing to cross the river for the station.
The new bridge has phrases describing "free use" and for the "benefit of the town's trade and commerce", you would also avoid that turn pike road, except to cross it from one side to another.
Looking at the bridge in question: could it be for access to the gasworks?
It would certainly have helped bringing the coal to it with no turn pike toll to pay.
Was there ever a plan to extend the goods yard into the area west of Railway Road?
Strangely enough - yes there was of a fashion... The L&Y's proposed bill (November 1866) suggested building a short dead end siding from close the to station approach area and West terminating just inside Lord Kay Shuttleworth's estate. Parliament approved the line but not this short section into his estate.
Was the L&Y architect a full employee or just a consultant? If he was a full employee, was he allowed to seek other work?
No idea on that one, Sturges Meek (L&Y Chief engineer) would certainly know of people in the drawing office of HO in Manchester where he was based. Lord Starkie would also know of plenty Architects so it's anyone's guess.
From the point of hiring Meek and Stone for the bridge work:
Mr Stone and his company had already gone though Lord Starkie's land to the West of the town, He would have been well placed to "inspect" Mr Stone's work and would have been well aware of the Ten arch 600 plus long stone viaduct his team had just finished building (1874). Hiring Stone would have been no problem, it's simply one more contract.
Mr Meek is a different kettle of fish - perhaps the L&Y allowed him to "supervise" the bridge build, after all the bridge would have benefitted the company and not cost them a penny! but it's anyone guess really.
Another example of a railway building a road bridge across a river can be found at Richmond in North Yorkshire. The branch ended SE of the town on the far side of the River Swale. So the railway company built a four-arch bridge across the river to link the station to the town.
The branch line opened in 1846 and for 70 years the bridge just served the station. But in WW1 the expansion of Catterick Camp (also served by a branch off the branch) led to the construction of a new road past the station to link to the existing Richmond-Catterick road - now the A6136.
Thank you John, at least one more example!
Just quickly going back to Meek and Stone, Mr Stone had the contract to build the line up to just outside the town, the other section was awarded to a Mr Gregson, even though his section was relatively easy to construct it looks like sometime in 1874 he was in financial difficulties and by all accounts couldn't finish the job. The L&Y of course lost confidence in him and Mr Stone was simply given the extra contract to build all three stations, two on his section and this one on Gregson's stretch. And so Mt Stone ended up working on part of a section of line he didn't bid for - the town's station.
The bottom line was that I was surprised to read that Meek and Stone were involved in a non railway project whilst the line was still unfinished - but then again what's a low two arch stone road bridge when you've already built a large 65 foot high viaduct with ten arches and over 600 feet long?
’George Hudson’
