Windmill Bridge is located in West London, near Hanwell flight of locks on Grand Junction Canal. It is better known as Three Bridges even though there aren’t three bridges. It’s a clever structure that makes road, canal and railway crossing possible at the same spot. It was opened 160 years ago.
The engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Windmill Bridge was part of his last railway project. The work started in 1856. It was built by E. R. Murray and J. L. Tredwell according to Historic England website. The project was completed just before Brunel’s death in 1859. It is nowadays a scheduled monument. I visited the bridge with Susan and Daniel Hayton on the sunny autumn day, 24 September 2017.
The road bridge on the top carries Windmill Lane over the Grand Junction Canal and the freight only Brentford branch line from Southall to Brentford.
I don’t know when the other track was dismantled but they still existed in the 60s but had gone by 1972. I gather this after watching the pictures on the Disused Stations website.
Under the road bridge by the canal:
The last picture is taken from other side of the canal, from Three Bridge Park:
The bridge is called Windmill Bridge because there was originally a windmill standing on the site.
Photos and text © Katriina Etholén
On the Disused Stations website you can find a great article with many historical pictures of the structure. If you find the structure interesting, then I really do recommend you to check it.
About the bridge on Historic England website.
Tales From The Brazier's Grotto 
What an interesting place, and what an ingenious piece of civil engineering! I’d never heard of this before, so I’ve just looked at the Disused Stations link. It’s clearly not the easiest thing to photograph unless you have access to the railway track!
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Yes, I noticed. I don’t know if I was on my own, had I tried to find a way, but as the railway is still in use, I guess it wouldn’t be easy if you didn’t know where to go. But yes, a very interesting structure. And for some reason it is ignored in most Brunel books. At least I didn’t find anything about it in my books.
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I had no idea that Brunel had built this – thank you! An amazing feat of engineering. I used to see Brunel’s bridge across the Tamar every morning when I woke up for school, because I could see it from by bedroom window – I even walked across it once.
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You’re welcome. I have several Brunel-related books, and there are no mention about this as it’s not one of his “major” works, so to speak, even though this is quite amazing. I visited Plymouth a couple of years ago just to see and photograph the Royal Albert Bridge. Its anniversary was last May, so once again I am late as I will publish a photo story about that bridge (that I photographed from both side) this spring. But better late than never!
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Oh, and thanks for visiting my blog!
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I’ll be back (cue Arnie stance).
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Thank you!!!
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Are you still writing your blog? I noticed that the last entry was from 2017. Thanks for starting following my blog, hopefully you find something you like.
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I’ve been through a period of writer’s block; maybe your comment was what I needed to get back into the swing of things?
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Let’s hope so!
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