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Stapleton Hall Rd Bridge
I’ve heard it needs to come down it’s too far gone. Does anyone know more?
Comments
Are these bridges listed in any way?
I do believe it's beautiful, not the best example of a brick bridge, but our built environment will end up looking just like anywhere else in the world if we get rid of these monuments to industrialisation.
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/apply-for-listing/
Haringey Council could also issue a Building Preservation Notice if it considers the bridge to have special architectural or historic interest, but which is in danger of demolition or alteration in such a way as to affect its character, by a form of temporary listing.
All very well getting sentimental (I’m just preempting here) over the efforts of the brickies, engineers, and architects of yore (i.e., when they were good), but it’s just a bog-standard railway bridge typical of its era (isn’t it?) with no outstanding features: A straight line over an arch in dark, rather unattractive brick. I doubt even Fred Dibnah would have had much to say in its favour.
Perhaps because of the bridge’s sheer mass it would be impractical to maintain the brickwork to a safe standard?
To destroy it rather than repair it would be yet another example of our attractive historic infrastructure being gradually being lost through neglect - and replacing it may well be more costly than if they'd maintained it properly in the first place. They just need to keep it watertight and keep it from being overgrown. Reinforce it internally with concrete if necessary, it wouldn't be the first time that had happened to preserve an older structure. Just do it properly, hidden within the structure, not like this: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jul/21/highways-england-may-have-to-reverse-act-of-cultural-vandalism
It's important to preserve elements of our past that can be repaired at a smaller ecological cost than wholesale replacement. Redevelopments like coaldrops show that even the less beautiful elements of our past (canal warehouses) can be preserved well and sit beautifully in a redeveloped setting. Who knows what the future holds for Stroud Green, but these monuments need to outlast this generation and live for at least another few hundred years.
Call me a philistine, but I’m yet to get a sense of the aesthetic qualities that have been alluded to of this plain (“boring”?), bog-standard bridge from the industrial age. I too despair (well, at least I would, should I wish to employ histrionics).
This is all quite ironic as one of the reasons the line was closed was weak bridges on the line that were too expensive to repair…
Most local people did however walk down to Finsbury Park tube station rather than take the APP&P, it wasn't so far. Hardly worth the diversion to the station or a walk down to Stroud Green Road for a bus. Bus numbers 210 (to Golders Green) 212 to Muswell Hill, and the 233 to Wood Green via Ally Pally.
Love the mental image of the fire brigade running their hoses through houses to the embankment! I wonder how many fires were started by the old locomotives.
A bit off-topic, but since you mention it, I’m only old enough to remember the W2 (to Turnpike Lane via Crouch End), which I think was discontinued in the ‘90s. The 210 to Golders Green still runs (and sometimes to Brent Cross—I remember it being extended for the shopping centre there opening in the ‘70s), but perhaps the 212 and 233 became the W7 and W3 respectively? (I do wonder what the “W” is for.)
Arkady, I remember the name!
Scruffy: in 1947 we had a very hot and long summer. The embankment was black.
Beyond the garden wall in Florence road there was a ditch where the rain created a wet barrier to getting out of the garden onto the grass. Although getting back was even more difficult. I wonder if that ditch is still there?