Source: "The Midland railway: its rise and progress. A narrative of modern enterprise" by Frederick Smeeton Williams, published by Strahan & Co London (1876). The following extract is from pages 486:
"Here a county road has for many years been carried over the Ribble by a little bridge; but the county authorities refused the railway company permission to make a level crossing, so the public road had to be diverted and conducted over the river and the railway by a viaduct of considerable length, which, standing beside its little old predecessor, furnished, our engineer remarked, a contrast between "bridges, ancient and modern." Near this spot the line passes along what was once the bed of the river, which had to be diverted along a new course blasted out for it; and by the side of the river a long wall has been erected to protect the embankment from floods."