PROTOTYPE INSPIRATION: FOOTBRIDGES
When introducing a railway-themed article, I often open with a reference to a forerunner in transportation by about 90 years, the canal.
While walking along the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal towpath, I came across a most unusual structure. Crossing the navigation, Drayton Footbridge is described as a ‘Gothic Folly’, Grade II listed; built in 1789, linked by an iron span, it has two crenelated towers each housing a spiral staircase. It is located aside a swing bridge and gives the village of Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, access to the towpath.
The bridge at Drayton doesn’t follow the recognised brick arch style associated with crossing a navigation. Its elevated level deck can be associated with a railway bridge; having been developed from the ‘clapper’ bridge, the design was first used to cross rivers in Bronze Age times. Consisting of stone risers, one on each riverbank, a large flat piece of granite would be laid across the uprights to form the earliest type of bridge. An example survives at Dartmeet in Devonshire.
Railway footbridges don’t necessarily date to the time of original railway construction. Such walkways that provide safe passage for railway passengers wishing to change platforms at stations and others, where the railway crossed an established footpath, were often introduced some years later as traffic increased.
The footbridge in general has often provided a vantage point for train spotters, not to mention courting couples whiling away a summer evening at a rural location. I met a lady who received a proposal of marriage when
