Locally Listed Building: Road Bridge, Bridge Street, Neston (LL4)

Road Bridge LL4 Address: Bridge Street Architect: Not Known Date: Not Known Description A visual inspection of the road confirms that the existing bridge is built upon an earlier structure. The stream passes into a wider tunnel of approximately 3 metres in diameter and this continues for the width of the carriageway. At the other side of the carriageway the stream passes into a smaller tunnel, of approximately 1.5 metres diameter which travels under the former railway line. In addition, the tooling marks on the stone work are quite different. The section of tunnel under the road features a smoother, lightly tooled (droved) finish rather than the rockface (cyclopean) finish on the rest of the stonework of the Railway Company. The barrier wall immediately adjacent to the roadside appears to incorporate sections of the older wall. It is clear that a bridge, or ford, would be required, as this would have been the main road linking the Deeside settlements prior to the building of the Chester High toll road. The sale plan of the Mostyn Estate (1850), which predates the railway by a number of years, identifies Bridge Street by its current name indicating that the bridge did indeed exist before the railway. The rail line opened in 1866 and was built by the Birkenhead Joint Railway Company by the famous railway contractor Thomas Brassey. There is a reference to a bridge at Neston in the November 1926 edition of the Cheshire Sheaf (p76), which listed bridges, found in Cheshire in 1621. A further record of a bridge is also found in the records of the Court of Sessions of 1750 which discusses the repair of Neston Bridge of which further references can be found for the next 50 years.