Braithwaite Street Bridge - London, UK - Arch Bridges on Waymarking.com

The Subterranea Britannica website tells us about it:

An Act of Parliament passed in 1836 authorised the building of the Eastern Counties Railway between London and Great Yarmouth. The London section of the line opened in June 1839 from a temporary terminus at Mile End to a temporary station at Romford. The following summer it was extended to a permanent terminus at Shoreditch which opened on 1st July 1840. The railway was also extended into East Anglia, reaching Colchester in March 1843. Shoreditch Station was renamed Bishopsgate on the 27th July 1846.

The company never reached its Great Yarmouth destination; the Eastern Counties merged with other lines to form the Great Eastern Railway in 1862. Initially the Great Eastern used Fenchurch Street as its City terminus but this lacked the capacity to deal with increasing suburban traffic so a new city site was selected adjacent to the North London Railway's Broad Street Station facing on to Liverpool Street. In order to reach the new terminus a new line diverged on the north side of the viaduct into Bishopsgate curving round under Bishopsgate and into the new terminus at Liverpool Street.

To accommodate Bishopsgate's passengers, new low level platforms were constructed at Bishopsgate, one underneath the existing station and the other on the south side of the old terminus. Bishopsgate Low Level as it was known opened on 4th November 1872

When platforms 1 to 10 at Liverpool Street station (West Side and Main Line) were brought into use on 2nd February 1874, Bishopsgate became redundant as a passenger terminus. The station was closed on 1st November 1875 although some trains continued to use it until 1879, at the same time Bishopsgate Low Level Station was renamed Bishopsgate.

Work immediately started on rebuilding and extending Bishopsgate as a massive goods station to supplement the earlier Brick Lane Goods Station (later renamed Spitalfields Goods Station); and together they were to become one of the largest in London handling the majority of the goods traffic to and from the east of England. The new station was available for goods traffic from 1881. Over the years many alterations and additions to the building were made with little evidence remaining of its former use as a passenger station.

The goods station (or goodsyards as it was often known) was on three levels, two having road access and served by railway tracks with the third upper level warehouse.

The street-level offices and rest rooms were located in the arches carrying the upper rail level and warehouse structures.

Eight road entrances were provided, the main entrance was at the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Commercial Street, there were four entrances in Wheler Street which passed transversely under the station and two in Brick Lane at the eastern end.

Encapsulated within the extensive 1870s work, between Wheler Street and Brick Lane, is 850 feet of the original viaduct of the Eastern Counties Railway. This is now referred to as the Braithwaite Viaduct, after John Braithwaite, the ECR's engineer. It has shallow, semi-elliptical brick arches, as do other sections further east, but the width here is greater, 50 feet or so front to back, as the tracks multiplied on approach to the terminus. So the piers are divided by cross-passages, with distinctive two-centred 'pointed' arches. Over the years the original viaduct has been successively widened.

The lower rail level was about 400 feet wide and 1500 feet long and was provided with a longitudinal railway track on the south side and three tracks in the middle, with transverse lines, mostly short, but including several extending the whole width of the station. By means of turntables and capstans, wagons could be shifted as required around the station or moved to or from one or other of the three hydraulic wagon hoists which provided communication with the rail-level lines above. There was no direct rail connection between the lower rail level and the main line, the only way wagons could be moved to the lower rail level was by means of the three hoists which were powered by two large hydraulic accumulators located on the south side of the station. A hydraulic accumulator is an energy storage device; a pressure storage reservoir in which a non-compressible hydraulic fluid is held under pressure from an external source. That external source can be a spring or as at Bishopsgate a raised weight.

There were two road approaches to the station one ascending from Wheler Street, alongside but outside the station, to reach the main entrance over the street-level entrance on Shoreditch High Street; the other ramp ran up adjacent to the street-level entrance, rising to pass round the station premises on the north side and reaching rail level near the west end of the goods shed; this also served the goods yard to the east.

The Londonist website tells ua about the renaming of Wheeler Street to Braithwaite Street:

The northern part of Wheler Street, which runs under the new Shoreditch High Street station between Bethnal Green Road and Commercial Street, has been renamed Braithwaite Street in honour of one of the most influential men in British railway history.

John Braithwaite, born in 1797, spent his 30s palling about with George and Robert Stephenson. After building, with John Ericsson, a steam locomotive called the Novelty, which was the first engine ever to run a mile in under a minute, he entered the Rainhill Trials; Novelty finished second to the only loco able to complete the trial — the Rocket.

Braithwaite later turned to civil engineering, and, under contract for the Eastern County Railways, built an impressive pointed-arch viaduct for the first ever Shoreditch station, which served as that company’s London terminus. 260m of what was once the 2km Braithwaite Viaduct, as it is known, are still standing, and it is one of the world’s oldest remaining railway structures; it was originally scheduled to be destroyed as part of the East London line extension, but then-culture secretary Tessa Jowell listed the viaduct Grade II in 2002.

Along with the ornamental gates on Shoreditch High Street, it is the only thing left of what was one of London’s first major rail termini, and next to the concrete battleship of the new station, offers an illustrative reminder of Britain’s railway heritage.

The remains of the viaduct are now Grade II listed with the entry at the English Heritage website telling us:

The surviving 260 metres of a viaduct built by the Eastern Counties Railway Company between 1839 and 1842 to a plan by John Braithwaite, the company architect. It was designed to carry trains into the terminus of Shoreditch Station (later called Bishopsgate Station, then superseded in 1875 by Liverpool Street Station). It was originally about 2 kilometres long and carried two lines of track on a series of broad elliptical vaults. The surviving section contains piers supporting 20 arches. It is built of stock brick from various sources, and the piers are decorated by stone impost bands and rendered plinths. The Gothic style of cross vaulting was an unusual choice, set against the Italianate style of the station building. The structure of the Viaduct is reminiscent of earlier canal architecture than it is of the more standardised railway architecture that was to follow. The piers are pierced by one, two or three pointed cross vaults which allowed pedestrian traffic to travel below the viaduct. This was intended to minimise the disruption to movement in the area and thus, lessen the impact of the railway line on local life. Shoreditch Station was remodelled between 1877 and 1881, and that new development encased the Viaduct between extensive vaults to north and south, the whole supporting a vast goodsyard on the upper deck. The surviving section of the Viaduct was reduced by approximately 2 metres before the bonding of the new vaults to its current width of 14 metres, although the foundations of the original piers survive to their full width. The Braithwaite Viaduct is a very early and rare example of a railway viaduct associated with a first generation London Terminus. Its unusual and individual design and use of materials set it apart both structurally and visually from the more standards forms of railway architecture. It is associated with an important phase of railway development and bridges the period between distinct canal and later distinct railway engineering forms. The gates and forecourt walls of the Goodsyard are already listed. None of the other buildings or structures on the site (including structures adjoining the Viaduct) are of special interest.

Height of bridge: 13ft 03in What type of traffic does this bridge support?: Former railroad What kind of gap does this bridge cross?: Road for cyclists and pedestrians Date constructed: 1839 Is the bridge still in service for its original purpose?: No Name of road or trail the bridge services: Braithwaite Street Location: London Length of bridge: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/25/2021 OrientGeo visited it