Brick viaduct on the Grand Junction Railway by Joseph Locke, Thomas Brassey's first commission.
Thomas Brassey's first successful tender was for the construction of the Penkridge Viaduct plus 10 miles of railway line. He moved to Stafford where his first son was born - a son who was to become an MP, a Cabinet Minister and a Colonial Governor, eventually being raised to the peerage as the first Lord Brassey.
As part of his contract, Thomas Brassey had to provide the materials and to raise the workforce. He brought his bricklayers and masons from the Birkenhead area. His labourers or "navvies" were recruited from Irish immigrants in Liverpool. For three years these "navvies" were to be the scourge of Penkridge. Open warfare was waged with the local lads at all the hostelries in Penkridge. Finally Lord Hatherton, as a Magistrate, barred them from all but one of the local inns.
Penkridge Viaduct, 11 m (37 ft) high, consists of seven arches, each with a span of 9 m (30 ft). The foundations were set in concrete to a depth of 21.3 m (70 ft). This work was completed by July 1835. The 16 km (10 miles) of approach track was then constructed. South of Penkridge, the track ran alongside the Turnpike road used by horse drawn traffic in those days. Lest the horses should bolt when the 'iron monster' passed, a special embankment had to be built between track and road.
By August 1836 Brassey had fulfilled his contract and was appointed to build the London to Southampton Railway. From his first contract at Penkridge, Brassey became the great railway builder of the century. By 1847 he had built one out of three km in Britain. By 1850 he had constructed 3 out of every 4 km in France. When he died in 1870, leaving a fortune of over 5 million pounds in trust for his wife and four sons, he had constructed railways in Italy, Denmark, Russia, Austria, India, Australia, Canada and the Argentine.
By road: Off A449 on the northern outskirts of Penkridge.
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