The Ordsall Chord, UK: conservation architecture and engineering – part 1: project overview

Abstract

The Ordsall Chord is a new railway connecting the main-line stations in Manchester, UK, for the first time, reducing congestion, introducing new passenger services and bringing significant economic benefits. The new railway intersects the line of George Stephenson’s 1830 Liverpool and Manchester Railway and connects to two further nineteenth-century railway viaducts. It had a significant physical and visual impact on highly sensitive heritage assets. This first part of a pair of companion papers summarises the project and explains the history of the heritage structures, the consent process and the taken overall approach to conservation architecture and engineering. The design carefully considered the physical, visual and contextual relationship between old and new structures. This paper summarises the structural monitoring work undertaken on the existing brick railway. Other significant works, such as demolition, underpinning and refurbishment of historic metal bridges, are presented and explained. The paper summarises some of the building recording, archaeological investigation and public-realm landscaping works undertaken.