Starkeys Bridge, Donington Park

I took these photographs at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2011.

What are apparently the remains of what was once a bridge always intrigued me. It’s called ‘Starkeys Bridge’ and apparently that is the way it was originally built in 1834 as a ‘Garden Feature’ for Donington Hall which is over to the right in my first photograph and outside the circuit.

I remember seeing photographs taken at pre-war meetings at Donington Park where the circuit actually passed through one of the arches of the bridge. The large spark plug in my second photograph was a commentary tower.

Starkeys Bridge

I took this photograph of Starkey's Bridge at Donington Park at the Ferrari & Maserati Festival of Racing meeting in May 2003 from a position on the straight between McLeans Corner and Coppice Corner.

When you think of all the safety features on racing circuits now (and just look at the run-off areas here) it seems unbelievable that on the pre-war circuit the track went through one of the arches of the bridge - as far as I can make out it's the right-most arch of the three shown in the photograph. The photograph on this AboutMyArea website shows a car passing under the bridge at the first car race meeting held at the circuit in 1933.

The blue car on top of the left-hand side of the bridge is the wind tunnel model of the World Land Speed Record car, Project Blue Star, from the 1970s.