With the railways forcing their way north from London in the 1850’s the bridge
had a new neighbour – a railway station and crossing. The route continued
to get busier. In 1851 the wooden handrails had decayed and the bridge was
too narrow for the increase in traffic from the opening of the railway with the
station very close by. The bridge was widened to cope with this extra traffic.
The downstream face had a single span brick arch added on increasing the
width to 14ft 6in (4.4m). An inscribed keystone records the work.
From this point there were three more widenings of the bridge. These are
not well documented, but the first was probably the upstream being widened
with a massive RSJ (rolled Steel Joist) added and over the cutwater with
concrete supports obscuring the abutments. This increased the width to 18ft
8in (5.7m) overall.
The other two widenings were one to each face of the bridge resting
on concrete abutments, with 6ft (1.8m) wide footpaths on each side. The
downstream side first, then the upstream in 1937.
Phase 3 – 2001 - 2002
Today the bridge stands proud over the river after it was reinforced to take
the construction traffic for the replacement of the A507 flyover. This work
was undertaken a Ё