that served the Great Northern Railway's warehouse in Deansgate. The high-level tubular steel viaduct is decorated with turrets. It was built for the Great Northern Railway Company and carried GNR trains to the company's Deansgate warehouse until 1963. Richard Johnson who was a Chief Engineer of the GNR was responsible for the design. The Cornbrook and Great Northern viaducts stood disused for many years. When a route for the Metrolink trams was investigated, the Cornbrook Viaduct was found to be in much better condition than the 1894 one. It was chosen for refurbishment (1990–1991) and is currently used by Metrolink trams going to Altrincham. The Salford branch viaduct, the fourth viaduct, was separate from the others. It was also built by the Manchester South Junction & Altrincham Railway in 1848–1849. It uses a brick arch to cross the Staffordshire arm of the basin, before passing under the later Cornbrook and Great Northern viaduct and intersected with the then main line to Altrincham at a point about 300m west of Knott Mill Station. The whole viaduct from Piccadilly to Ordsall Junction is long and consists of 224 brick arches. There were six cast iron bridges that span Water Street, the Rochdale Canal, Castle Street and Chester Road, Deansgate Station, Oxford Road (encased in concrete in 1959) and over Albion Street (renewed in reinforced concrete in 1980). They were all designed by William Baker and have a similar construction, with six cast iron arches each made in three or five sections. During the regeneration of the Castlefield basin, a spectacular footbridge was built from Slate Wharf to Catalan Square. This is the Merchant's Bridge, where the 3m wide deck is hung by 13 hangers from the steel arches. The span is 40m. The designers, Whitby and Bird acknowledge the influence of Santiago Calatrava. A couple of modern but traditional looking cast iron clad steel footbridges built by Marsh Bros Engineers, Bakewell 1990 have been thrown over some arms. In addition Dutch style lifting bridges have been built at Slate Wharf and Grocers Warehouse. An interesting stoneclad footbridge has been built over the Rochdale Canal. This is called the Architect's bridge. George Stephenson's line crossed the River Irwell by a skew-arched masonry bridge built in 1830, to the north of the canal basin and then Water Street; this bridge is the first recorded use of the Hodgkinson beam, (or I-beam). Other prominent buildings