Worship Street Bridge
in London
1873 Constructed for the Great Eastern Railway at Bishopsgate Street Railway Station
1896 Rebuilt.
1910 'RETIREMENT OF MR. JOHN WILSON, ENGINEER-IN-CHIEF OF THE GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY ..... Contemporaneously with these widenings nearer London, the enlargement of the terminus at Liverpool Street Station was taken in hand. The old station covered 91 acres of land, and on its completion the new and old station combined covered 141 acres, and provision was made for eighteen platform lines, as against nine in the old station. The new station works practically absorbed a whole parish, and in addition to the station extension proper a large suite of offices was erected facing Bishopsgate Street. Perhaps the most remarkable part of the work from an engineering point of view was the one performed in connection with the reconstruction of Worship Street Bridge. This bridge carried the public thoroughfare over four lines of way by means of two arches of 25 ft. span each. This was entirely demolished and a girder bridge, 80 ft. wide, put in its place, the work being done whilst about 800 trains a day were passing underneath. During the whole of these necessarily very complicated arrangements no accident occurred, and the public roadway was stopped for only nine days. On the completion of the station terminus it was lighted by means of a very complete system of electric light which not only supplied the necessary current for lighting the Liverpool Street. but the whole of the Company's property as far as Bethnal Green Junction, and was at that time the most important private installation yet established in the kingdom. ....'[1]
1939 RAILWAY BRIDGE WIDENING. At Worship Street, just outside Liverpool Street Station, the construction of a new widened bridge is taking place simultaneously with the demolition of the old one. Below, uninterrupted, run 1,264 trains a day, the busiest steam operated train service in the world. Above, 4,000 telephone lines must be kept in use continuously. The work forms part of the L. N.E.R. electrification scheme to Shenfield and over 400 tons of new steelwork and 70,000 rivets will be absorbed. At the same time 200 tons of steel and 400 tons of concrete embodied in the old bridge will be removed.' [2]
This was one of three overbridges built to carry Worship Street, Primrose Street, and Skinner Street, across the numerous lines of track all converging on Liverpool Street Station. All three structures were on the skew, that at Worship Street forming an angle of 60deg. with the line of roadway. The bridges were rebuilt in 1895-6 when Liverpool Street Railway Station was enlarged, and the Horseley Co of Tipton were the contractors for the construction and erection of all the ironwork of the three bridges. John Mowlem and Co were responsible for the earthwork, brickwork, and foundations. [3]. These bridges, of somewhat unconventional construction, no longer exist in their original form. Worship Street Bridge was rebuilt in 1939 and survives, its utilitarian structure providing a welcome contrast to its gleaming high rise neighbours. Skinner Street (now Pindar Street) and Primrose Street still cross the railway, but no longer over identifiable bridges, following the construction of Exchange House and Exchange Square. See here[4] for an interesting account of the changes which have taken place in this area.