Both companies received Parliamentary approval in 1873, but due to financial difficulties building was delayed for two years, by which time the Ross and Ledbury Railway had abandoned its plan to reach Ross and linked with the Newent Railway head-on to provide a through route from Ledbury to Gloucester.

[6] Just south of the junction the double-track line was carried at an awkward angle of approximately 45° over the Hereford Road, now part of the A438, by an arch bridge of "unusual design".

[7] Photographs show that each rib forms a separate segmental right arch[A] equal in width to three stretcher bricks[B] (each nominally 9 inches (230 mm) long), and offset from each of its neighbours by the width of six header bricks (each nominally 4+1⁄2 inches (110 mm) wide), thus providing as a whole for a skew angle of approximately 45°.

[C] This method of construction was first proposed by British-born American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1802 and later championed by French civil engineer A. Boucher, and has the advantage of being one of the simpler ways of building a skew arch, but set against that it has received considerable criticism for being "weak, ugly and wasteful of materials".

The smooth blue brick ribs contrast with the rusticated pink sandstone and the east parapet wall carries a plain date stone to mark 1881 as the year of construction.