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The mystery of the railway bridge abutment at Barrington Road, Brixton

Mumbles274 said:
Was there a bridge or is that just a retaining wall?
Click to expand...
The station opened in 1866 (gosh, when Brixton was still in Surrey!). The South London Line was er. . .authorised (?) in 1862. So, where would the bridge go to? At present the abutment is opposite Brixton station road so a bridge would have gone nowhere, apart from hoovering above Brixton Station Road. A map of 1894 is all I can find for the present. c(after some more searching . . .) I have found a map of 1876. This shows that Brixton Station Road does not go all the way through to Barrington Road. It might have turned north at Canterbury Crescent, not traversing Gresham Road norgoing as far as Barrington Road (as it does today). Oh, the map . Best to enlarge it and compare with a modern map but East Brixton Station is there. The orphanage (hence Orphans Yard) opened in 1876 but does not say when it was built.

As an aside, for those that want to go further back, here's a map from 1824.
 
There are three sets of lines there and East Brixton was on the southern side of the lines.

East_brixton_station_map.png


The northernmost lines go to Elephant & Castle and then Blackfriars (no idea how often they are used).

The middle set would go along the same way as the southern set as far as Peckham Rye and then go their seperate ways. The lines would cross over, the southernmost set would pass under the middle set and go to London Bridge. The middle set would carry on to the south east.

Hope I've got that right, bit quiet here (again) so have time for a bit of research:rolleyes: .
 
Balham said:
The northernmost lines go to Elephant & Castle and then Blackfriars (no idea how often they are used).
Click to expand...
There are no passenger services on the Blackfriars chord. It's used for rolling stock movements only. The only service you could board from a platform in that location would be Victoria - Blackfriars, which isn't much use!
 
Crispy said:
There are no passenger services on the Blackfriars chord. It's used for rolling stock movements only. The only service you could board from a platform in that location would be Victoria - Blackfriars, which isn't much use!
Click to expand...

According to the station history on Wikipedia, there were platforms on the Loughborough Road curve at Loughborough Junction, but they closed in 1916.

There were a lot of complicated inner suburban services in the early years (before the underground happened there were some very complicated cross-London ones) but this trade dwindled as electric trams took hold of the inner suburbs and the middle class commuters moved further out.

editor - do you go on rail uk forums? it tends towards current matters, but sometimes ventures into historic.

SEMG and Kent Rail have a bit about East Brixton Station, including this picture showing the bit of track-bed in question without any tracks on it.

East_Brixton_1960_2.jpg


The SECR Society website has quite a lot of documentation on it, but much is in a 'members only' bit.
 
editor said:
It looks even more like it was built for a bridge in this view:

View attachment 29794

http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app?service=external/FullScreenImage&sp=I9:East Brixton Station (L.B. of Lambeth)::E&sp=234737&sp=X&sp=2
Click to expand...

Possible as certainly in 1876 Brixton Station Road wasn't there (as far as Barrington Road). In the map of 1894 though Brixton Station Road does go all the way to Barrington Road which would have put pay to any bridge idea.
brixton-1894.jpg


Perhaps one of the things to do is to find the history of the eastern end of Brixton Station Road - Canterbury Road to Barrington Road.
 
I've tried a bit of digging on St Catherine's Church Loughborough Park in case this may have shed any light on it, but this is about the best I can find

The parish of ST. CATHERINE'S, Loughborough Park, was formed in 1877, but the church, which was only a temporary building, was closed in 1902 and the site acquired for a fire station.
Click to expand...

from British History online
 
Mrs Magpie said:
No, the new Victorian houses were pulled down and a railway put there and then new Victorian houses built right next to the railway.
Click to expand...

Cheers, Mrs R's dad just found a copy of that for 20p so I'll have a read when I see him next :)
 
An update! Had a nice e-mail from Southeastern who have said they will forward my enquiry to the right people.

Dear Miss ********


Thank you for your web form which we received on 5th March 2013.

As your comments refer to a different train company, unfortunately we can't answer them for you. However, to save you any further inconvenience, I've forwarded them to the correct company.

The contact details for Network Railare below and I'm sure they'll be in touch with you soon.
Network Rail
Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1 9AG
Web Address: www.networkrail.co.uk
Telephone Number: 08457 11 41 41
Thank you for taking the time to contact us.
Yours sincerely
**** *******
Customer Relations Officer
Southeastern

So, three cheers for Southeastern and with any luck we'll get to find out what the mystery is.
 
It may be nothing (indeed it might not even be these arches), but there is a remark in the Survey of London which might suggest why that part of the bridge looks like it heads off to nothing (emphasis added):

With this report in mind, Parliament rejected several schemes for more lines in Lambeth. A most complicated arrangement was eventually approved in the sessions of 1863 and 1864, whereby Victoria and London Bridge were connected by direct lines above ground, the cost and the marshy character of part of the area presumably making covered ways impracticable. The Lambeth portions of these lines were built conjointly by the London, Brighton and South Coast and the London, Chatham and Dover Companies (ref. 37) (fig. 2, nos. 4–7). All these lines were opened by 1867, though not without mishap, for in 1864 nineteen newly-completed arches at Brixton collapsed when the centering was removed. (ref. 38) They also involved the construction of two high bridges over the Herne Hill to Brixton and Herne Hill to Loughborough Junction arms of the Metropolitan Extension, the latter having only been completed in 1863. In 1872 another spur, built by the Crystal Palace and South London Junction Railway and involving the erection of three iron bridges and the demolition of a number of houses in Flaxman Road, joined Loughborough Junction with the line to Peckham (ref. 39) (fig. 2, no. 11).
Click to expand...
 
An (minor) update. Recieved today.

Dear Miss. ********,

Barrington Road Abutment

Thank you for your enquiry into an abutment on Barrington Road, which Southeastern have passed on to the Network Rail helpline. We are currently looking into your query and hope to be able to provide you with the relevant information within the next four weeks, due to the timeframes for requesting any necessary drawings.

I hope to be in contact soon with more information. Any unrelated infrastructure enquiries should be referred to our 24-hour National Helpline on 08457 11 41 41 in the first instance.

Yours Sincerely,

******** ***********
Community Relations Advisor
Corporate Communications
London & Southeast



Drawings as well eh ! !

That survey of London bit though was interesting.
 
I've noticed this abutment too. I'd always idly assumed it was to do with the coal staithes, without really thinking it through.
 
I wonder if maybe the railway line originally ran where the eastern end of Brixton station road is now, and the alignment was changed when that bit of the road was built. So that abutment would originally have been one side of a bridge carrying the Loughborough Junction-Brixton lines. Then became disused when the alignment of the tracks was shifted across to the south, to allow Brixton station road to be constructed.

Note that on the map here from 1878, there a 7 houses along the E side of Barrington Rd, to the north of the railway bridge. The line appears to pass right next to the last of the 7 houses. If you look at the present day view, the mystery abutment is right next to the 7th house.

Also, note that on the 1878 map, the railway lines appear to converge at a junction between gresham road and barrington road, whereas now this junction is to the west of gresham road, suggesting that the whole arrangement here has been re-aligned since those lines were first built.

I might be granting the 1878 map with more accuracy than it deserves, though.
 
teuchter said:
I wonder if maybe the railway line originally ran where the eastern end of Brixton station road is now, and the alignment was changed when that bit of the road was built. So that abutment would originally have been one side of a bridge carrying the Loughborough Junction-Brixton lines. Then became disused when the alignment of the tracks was shifted across to the south, to allow Brixton station road to be constructed.
Click to expand...
That would have been a very costly business considering the line is running along a viaduct. Why would they shift the line for a nondescript piece of road?
 
Yes I agree, it's unlikely that the alignment would have been changed just to allow the construction of the bit of road. But perhaps there were other reasons to change the alignment, and the road was built at the same time.
 
If it was an abandoned extension/branch, there's no particularly obvious place for it to have gone:

del.jpg
 
So it's older than other stations nearby, but newer than the church. Interesting. Thanks for that.

Apologies for taking the thread onto a lesser-used branch line.
 
I think I have gone as far as I can with this, reply recieved today from Network Rail.


Dear Miss ********,

Barrington Road Abutment

Further to my previous e-mail, I have been informed by our Structures department that it appears that there were railway sidings at this location. For more information or historical records you may contact our records department via e-mail at: Askthearchives@networkrail.co.uk or by writing to: (name) Network Rail Archives, Desk 6, National Records Group, 5 Aurdax Road, Cliftonmore, York, YO3 04GS. Please note that there is an administration fee for this service, but our records department will be able to help with further queries.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Yours Sincerely,

******** *'******
Community Relations Advisor
Corporate Communications
London & Southeast

So, it seems sidings. Now, if anyone wants to contact Archives and pay the administratioon fee (no idea how much it is though) . . . . . .
 
I reckon they just asked one of their maintenance engineers who said "I dunno, sidings or something".

I am sticking with my theory that they were at one point the running lines.
 
Lines to where? By 1894 Brixton Station Road had been built (in part?). Westbound where would the lines go to?
On a map (Charles Booth) of 1898 - 1899 Brixton Station Road ran eastwards only to Gresham Road as far as I can see.

Map of 1870 (found on Urban) while not showing Brixton Station Road as a road there doesn't seem any place for a railway line to go.
Map of 1864 of the area - you can from the main map go to another section.

What was Orphan's Yard used for? How long has it been there.
 
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