Mountsorrel Parish Council sponsors the repointing of the Wood Lane bridge

Great care has been taken to restore the repaired sections of the Wood Lane railway bridge to its original appearance.

The remaining sections of the bridge are also in urgent need of work in the form of repointing to replace the original mortar that has eroded away over time. Although the material costs of repointing the bridge are not that great, it is a very time consuming and skilled task therefore employing contractors would be be beyond the financial means of the project. However, without undertaking this work the bridge would deteriorate very quickly indeed.

Our volunteer stonemason has kindly agreed to take on the task of repointing the road facing side of the bridge, supported by other members of our volunteer team. The total material costs are around £100.

Mountsorrel Parish Council has very kindly agreed to donate £50 towards these costs. We are grateful to them for supporting the project in this way.

The already repaired sections of the bridge give a good impression of what the completed works will look like.



The bridge is an important reminder of Mountsorrel's industrial past and we are delighted that the Parish Council is helping us to protect our heritage!

Aerial photos of the trackbed

A local supporter of the project has kindly sent us several superb aerial photos, which were taken in July 2009 after the ballast had been laid. The sequence starts from the Great Central Railway (GCR) junction and moves along the trackbed towards Mountsorrel.



This shot, looking south, shows the GCR running top left to middle right with Swithland Sidings visible in the top left of the picture and Swithland reservoir to the right. The branch can be clearly seen curving away from the GCR and leaving the shot towards Mountsorrel in the bottom left. The lighter green area to the right of the branch trackbed approximately half way around the curve, is the proposed site of Railway Vehicle Preservation's (RVP's) future carriage shed. The current head of ballast is obscured by the line of trees in the bottom left of shot.



This shot, again looking south, was taken from a little further along the branch. The farmer's track can be seen crossing the trackbed in the middle of the picture. The newly laid ballast can be seen on the approach to the crossing but the trees obscure the ballast beyond. The crossing itself will be ballasted and constructed once track laying reaches it.



This shot was taken looking north. It shows the long straight beyond the crossing. Again the newly laid ballast is clearly visible.



This shot, again looking north, shows the curve at the end of the RVP section of the trackbed. The Lafarge section starts roughly in the middle of the shot and leaves the frame towards Nunckley Hill on the right.



This view, taken looking north east, shows the trackbed as it enters the Nunckley cutting, passing through the old Nunckley Hill quarry, under Wood Lane, before continuing towards Bond Lane in the far distance.



A close up of the head of ballast at the end of phase one in the base of the old Nunckley Hill quarry. Wood Lane can be seen crossing the trackbed just beyond the ballast to the right of shot. It is also just possible to pick out the newly restored bridge wall on the bridge. At this point the head of ballast is 1,300m from the GCR with 500m to go to reach Bond Lane.

You can have a tour of the trackbed for yourself if you come to the Great Central Railway gala on 10-11 October. Hope to see you there!