History

Built to carry the Bridgend Railway, a horse-drawn railway built between 1827 and 1830 between Bridgend and the Dyffryn Llynfi and Porthcawl Railway, which in turn linked the area with the harbour at Porthcawl. The engineer for the railway was John Hodgkinson, who began as principal assistant to Benjamin Outram and became a leading early railway engineer in his own right, responsible for several important lines in South Wales and the Midlands. Hodgkinson's design was built in 1829 by Morgan Thomas of Laleston. The railway opened in 1830 and was absorbed into the South Wales Railway in 1861 but abandoned by 1864. It is now a road bridge.

Exterior

Triple-arched viaduct of coursed rubble, which has segmental arches with tooled voussoirs and prominent keys. The piers have pointed cutwaters which are moulded and stepped. Above the arches is a tooled string course and a parapet with big stone copings (part replaced in concrete on E side). On the W side the parapet has an engraved tablet with the letters highlighted in black paint and reading: 'THIS BRIDGE WAS ERECTED IN THE YEAR 1829 BY MORGAN THOMAS, LALESTON, MASON'.

Reasons for Listing

Listed Grade II* as a rare and especially fine example of an early railway bridge and an important component of the early industrial history of the district.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q17739043

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)