Gaunless Bridge, the world's first metal railway bridge, to be rescued

Historic England has this week announced that it has awarded Durham County Council £161,000 to repair the remains of the bridge which carried the pioneering railway over the River Gaunless at West Auckland.

The abutments of the Gaunless Bridge in West Auckland, which are to have £161,000 of Historic England's money spent on them in time for the 2025 bicentenary

Currently only vandalised abutments survive rather sadly on either side of the river, but in 1823 this was the scene of world-leading technology as George Stephenson – probably with a lot of help of his 20-year-old son Robert – used the new material of cast iron to create what may be the world’s first lenticular bridge.

Giles Proctor, from Historic England, said: “Gaunless Bridge has a significant role in the history of the railway and the repair of its abutments mark the first step in securing the bridge’s legacy as a part of the new walking and cycling route.”

Cllr Elizabeth Scott, of the county council, said: “As the world’s first iron railway bridge, the bridge is a key part of our rail heritage, both at a local and national level.

“We’re really pleased therefore that this funding is allowing us to restore and repair the abutments, helping preserve this important site.”

The bridge was cast by John and Isaac Burrell at their foundry in Forth Street, Newcastle, to the designs of either George (above) or Robert Stephenson. Its strength is in the “lenticular” shape of its leg supports – they look like a lentil seed or a biconvex lens and they enabled the bridge to be built without a single rivet or nut. A Croatian bishop, Faustius Verantius, had published the first lenticular bridge design in 1595 – along with the first wind turbine and the first parachute – but it seems not to have left his drawing board until the Stephensons employed it at West Auckland.

And it wasn’t an immediate success.

Snowmelt washed away the first bridge when it was less than a year old. It was immediately rebuilt, with four lenticular spans as opposed to the original's three, and was ready for the S&DR’s opening day, September 27, 1825, when 12 wagons of Witton Park coal were lowered down the Etherley Incline to it.

One wagon of flour, ground in West Auckland’s mills, was then added to the train which horses pulled over the bridge to the next incline, which pulled the wagons up the hill at Brusselton and lowered them down to Shildon where Locomotion No 1 was waiting to begin the steam-powered journey into Darlington and Stockton.

People on the Gaunless Bridge, no doubt admiring its pioneering lenticular construction, before the ironwork was removed in 1901

The bridge remained in use until 1901 when it was no longer able to take the weight of the increasingly heavy coal wagons. The lenticular structure was dismantled and ended up in a car park at the National Railway Museum at York – it may soon be coming home to the Shildon museum – and a flat steel deck was placed across the parapets. That lasted until the colliery trade came to an end in the late 1960s, and since then, the abutments have been allowed to take their chances with the elements and the vandals.

The remains of the world's first metal railway bridge in a car park at the National Railway Museum in York - will they be coming home to Shildon?

But Historic England’s grant will turn the tide of recent history, and allow the bridge to become part of the new path that will be ready for the 200th anniversary in 2025.

Niall Hammond, chairman of the Friends of the S&DR, said: “We are delighted with this and look forward to significant improvements to the landscape setting and interpretation so that visitors, school groups and the local community can appreciate the world class engineering marvel that is the S&DR. We also hope very soon to see the metal sections of the bridge rescued from obscurity and given a suitable pride of place in Shildon at Locomotion Museum.”

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