Given the amount of traffic which goes "Over the Top", many people living in Hadfield today would probably be amazed that the railway bridge on Park Road, near the station, was purely a road bridge for well over 100 years after the coming of the line. For much of that time, of course, traffic would not have been much of a problem, especially with horse drawn vehicles. However, with the increase in motorised traffic it did become more of a hazard.
Things started to come to a head in the summer of 1953 when Castle School playing field was fenced off with concrete posts and chain link fencing. A number of concerned parents wrote to the Glossop Chronicle, in August 1953, concerned that children would try to get to the recreation ground in Bankswood Park more often. One parent described the fencing of the field as "the claiming of the children's recreation ground at Hadfield for the use of scholars of the Castle School only", pointing out that it had been used as a recreation ground by children for many years. The writer contnued that in order to find a field to play - Bankswood - children would have to cross a busy six-road junction and walk along a road bridge over the railway, without any footpaths, which was also a bus route. It was suggested that, in order to reduce the danger, a footbridge could be erected on one side of the bridge as had already been done at Woolley Bridge. The newspaper printed the photo on the left to illustrate the danger.
