Bishop's Bridge

You are standing on Bishop's Bridge, a vital artery that stretches across the railway tracks leading into Paddington Station and the Grand Union Canal. While it appears to be a standard modern road bridge today, it sits atop a layer of remarkable hidden history. For decades, the remnants of a forgotten iron bridge built by the legendary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel were concealed within the brickwork of a later structure at this site. This original 1838 bridge was a masterpiece of early industrial design, using bulb-headed cast iron girders that locked together without bolts, acting like a complex jigsaw puzzle. It was only during an inspection in 2003 that this significant piece of Victorian engineering was rediscovered, having been encased and protected for over a century.