Two photographs showing the construction of Billingham Branch Bridge. The Billingham Branch Bridge is a road bridge built over a disused railway line. It was built c1933 and is thought to be the first welded steel bridge in Britain.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
This bridge is a listed building ( https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1248145)
The railway line was definitely not disused!
It’s the line through Billingham.
The bridge pictured (it’s not the Davis Bridge) carries the “Newport Bridge Approach Road”, which describes its location nicely, and is about 0.5km from Newport Bridge on the Stockton side of the river. The Billingham (Beck) branch line passed under this bridge. This is the line that became disused and was removed. The Norton section of the line is now a cycle/footpath, and the section from Portrack to this bridge could possibly become the route of the Portrack relief road, if that ever happens.
Is this Davis Bridge named after a colonel?
Great to see these pictures. This was one of the first welded bridges to be built in the world. It appears that much of the structure was prefabricated and then shipped in.