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Lady Bay Bridge

When the Nottingham to Melton railway was built in the 1870s, Bridge 2 was known as Trent Bridge, and Lady Bay Bridge was the name of an adjacent road bridge over the now disused Grantham canal at Radcliffe Road, which was removed in October 1960. A 1913 Midland Railway map refers to this bridge as "River Bridge Number 2". When Bridge 2 was converted to road a hundred years later, it was renamed Lady Bay Bridge to avoid confusion with the adjacent Trent (Road) Bridge.

The bridge was a major construction as the following account from 1876 describes, "The bridge that will here carry the line over the river will be a noble structure. There will be three main openings, each of 100 feet span, and five land arches at either end, each of 26 feet span. The river openings will be spanned by light wrought-iron bow-string girders supported by cast-iron cylinders, which will rest on the bed of the river and be filled in solid with brickwork. The flood openings will be brick arches with blue brick facings, and their foundations will go an average distance of some 20 feet down, to the rock. There will be, in fact, almost as much work below ground as above, in consequence of the instability of the upper strata, which are liable to be scoured out or shifted by the heavy floods to which this valley is exposed. The parapet is in panels of brickwork, and of pleasing proportions."

In December 1981, the bridge was taken over by the BBC who were filming the series "Smiley's People". It was chosen because it closely resembles one of the bridges between East and West Germany.