Carlby bridge

BUILT 1859

Relics of the steam age can be found in many places around the country and as Bourne was an important railway centre for more than 100 years, disused stations, bridges, viaducts and sidings remain as a reminder of the popularity of this form of transport for passengers and freight.

Among them is the road bridge over the disused line between Carlby and Greatford, four miles south west of Bourne, built in 1859 as part of the new rail link with Essendine, so connecting with the main east coast line between London and the north.

Bourne station was then located next to the Red Hall and the line ran through Thurlby, Wilshorpe Halt, Braceborough Spa and on to Essendine, all villages which retain distinctive remains of the railway age such as red brick station houses, concrete platforms and whitewashed gatekeepers’ cottages.

The Bourne and Essendine Railway Company was founded to build the line in 1857, headed by such distinguished people as the wealthy landowner John Lely Ostler and the vicar, the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, who between them provided the £48,000 share capital needed to finance the project. A total of 54 acres of land was bought for the track which was to run for a distance of 6¼ miles with no major embanking or cutting work required and when the parliamentary bill for its construction was finally approved by the House of Lords in July that year, the bells of the Abbey Church were rung in celebration and it was announced that work would begin immediately the harvest had been completed when sufficient local labour would be available.

Consignments of bricks and sleepers began arriving before Christmas and were stored at various sites along the route and orders were placed for the iron rails. Mr Charles Eldred of Bourne was appointed contractor but there were delays in raising all of the required capital and work did not actually begin until the middle of 1858 with a prediction that it would be completed in 12 months. But this was an optimistic assessment and it was not until February 1860 that the first train steamed into Bourne station although this was an experimental run by engineers but a sufficient cause for celebration because Mr Dodsworth with his wife, daughter and guests, made an uncomfortable journey on the footplate to Essendine and back, reaching speeds of 40 mph at some points along the route.

A formal check by a government inspector was still required and the vital certificate allowing passengers to be carried did not arrive for several more weeks but services eventually began at 9 am on Wednesday 16th May.

Trains continued to use the line for the next ninety years but by the mid-20th century, rail travel had begun to decline with fewer passengers and less freight and in April 1951, despite objections from Bourne Urban District Council, closure plans were announced. The last train was the 8.51 pm from Essendine to Bourne on Saturday 16th June, packed to capacity with passengers standing shoulder to shoulder, children hanging out of the windows, streamers and flags flying bravely and exploding detonators placed on the line by railway workers sounding the death knell all the way from Essendine to Carlby bridge.

Within weeks, contractors moved in to start dismantling the line and its ancillary buildings and fittings, the sidings in Thurlby station yard being the first to go followed by all redundant stores down to the last sweeping brush and signal lamp. Sections of the now disused track bed were sold off to local farmers and soon the line was little more than a memory.

For the next fifty years, the Victorian two-arch bridge over the road between Carlby and Greatford was one of the remaining railway relics along the line although the track bed was soon overgrown and there was no indication that the railway ever ran there while sections of the cutting on either side were soon being used as a rubbish tip. Eventually, the bridge was condemned as unsafe and the hump it created in the roadway a danger to traffic and despite protests from the two parish councils which wanted it preserved as part of our industrial heritage, it was demolished in April 2007 when the road was closed for three weeks to enable the work to proceed.

All objections were overruled by South Kesteven District Council’s planning committee and the British Railways Board which owns the bridge was given permission to remove it because further maintenance would be uneconomical and so the road at this point was levelled and the embankment beneath filled in with the red bricks recycled from the demolition. “We cannot simply maintain structures of this type when they are no longer in use by rail traffic”, said a spokesman.

The demolition angered residents in both Greatford and Carlby who claimed that the bridge had historical merit and had become a haven for wildlife which had now been destroyed.

REVISED APRIL 2007

NOTE: Colour photograph of Carlby bridge courtesy the Stamford Mercury

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