"Kennington Viaduct"
1844: The GWR (Great Western Railway God's Wonderful Railway!) reached Kennington
- but did not cross the river.
1864: A wooden bridge over the river was built for the Wycombe Railway
which linked up with the GWR at Kennington Junction
There is some possibility that this might just have been called Isis Bridge
long before the current road bridge.
No image of this bridge 1864 has been found - but it possibly looked something like this -
A guess at what the Kennington 1864 wooden bridge may have looked like
(Actually Shiplake)
1885: View of Swan Hotel on Rose Island across a frozen river taken from Kennington Railway Bridge, Henry Taunt -
Swan Hotel on Rose Island from Kennington Railway Bridge, Henry Taunt, 1885
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT4683
So here is evidence for an otherwise unrecorded footbridge across the main river, downstream
of Kennington Railway Bridge.
Notice how few trees there were then - when every cottager:
a) had no money;
b) cooked, and heated their cottage, on wood fires
c) had an axe ...
Sometime between 1864 when the bridge was wooden, and 1897 when it was clearly iron (see below)
the bridge must have been replaced ...
1870: Taunt's Map of Oxford Railways:
Taunt's Map of Oxford Railways, 1879
SECOND Kennington Railway Bridge, James Dredge, 1897
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; D230531a
[ Looking upstream you can see the Hinksey Stream footbridge under the bridge on the left (LEFT bank) ]
1923: The (third and) current steel Kennington Railway Bridge built.
Hinksey Stream (Weir Stream)
LEFT bank. Navigable for small boats for one mile up to the weir pool just short of Donnington Road.
The other side of the weir is the stream from Longbridges.
Kennington Towpath Bridge
LEFT Bank Over the Hinksey Stream just above Kennington Railway Bridge.
Kennington Railway Bridge, 1999 seen from Upstream