Ouseburn Viaduct is a railway bridge in the East End of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

. It carries the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

over the

Ouseburn Valley The Ouseburn Valley is the name of the valley of the Ouseburn, a small tributary of the River Tyne, running southwards through the east of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The name refers particularly to the urbanised lower valley, spanned by thr ...

just east of the city centre. Designed by architects

John and Benjamin Green John Green (29 June 1787 – 30 September 1852) and Benjamin Green (1811 – 14 November 1858) were a father and son who worked in partnership as architects in North East England during the early nineteenth century. John, the father was a civil en ...

, it was originally built with timber arches in 1839 for the

Newcastle and North Shields Railway The Newcastle and North Shields Railway opened in June 1839 from a temporary terminus in Carliol Square in Newcastle upon Tyne to North Shields. The railway was absorbed by the Newcastle & Berwick Railway in November 1844. The Newcastle & Berwi ...

. The arches were replaced with near-identical

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

spans 30 years later. It is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

Design

The viaduct is long. It crosses the

Ouseburn The Ouseburn is a small river in Newcastle upon Tyne, England that flows through the city into the River Tyne, England, River Tyne. It gives its name to the Ouseburn Valley and the Ouseburn Ward (country subdivision), electoral ward for Newcas ...

, a minor tributary of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...

, and its valley on five arches, reaching a maximum height of from the base of the piers to the rails. Three of the arches have a span of each and the remaining two span each, with a maximum rise of . The viaduct is approached on either side by a pair of smaller stone arches, one of which is on a skew across Stepney Road. Ouseburn is taller and has fewer arches than the

Willington Dene Viaduct Willington Dene Viaduct (or simply Willington Viaduct) is a railway bridge at Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne, in north-eastern England. Its seven arches were built in timber in 1839 and later replaced with wrought iron in a near-identical pa ...

, built for the same railway a few miles further east at

Wallsend Wallsend () is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies east of Newcastle upon Tyne. History Roman Wallsend In Roman times, this was the site of the fort of ...

, but is otherwise of a very similar design.Biddle (2011), p. 427.Barbey, pp. 24–27.McFetrich, p. 325. The arches are supported on sandstone ashlar piers which are heavily sloped and buttressed and have decorative

coping Coping refers to conscious or unconscious strategies used to reduce and manage unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviors and can be individual or social. To cope is to deal with struggles and difficulties in life. It ...

. The arches were originally constructed from laminated timer beams, glued together (

glulam Glued laminated timber, commonly referred to as glulam, or sometimes as GLT or GL, is a type of structural engineered wood product constituted by layers of dimensional lumber bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant structural adhesives ...

) in a technique pioneered by the Bavarian engineer Carl Friedrich von Wiebeking, rather than held together mechanically by nails or bolts, as was more common. The wooden beams consisted of 14 layers of timber measuring 22 × 3 inches (56 × 9 cm), which were held in place with

trenails A treenail, also trenail, trennel, or trunnel, is a wooden peg, pin, or dowel used to fasten pieces of wood together, especially in timber frames, covered bridges, wooden shipbuilding and boat building. It is driven into a hole bored through two ...

. They were replaced with near-identical arches in

in 1869.

History

The viaduct was first built between 1837 and 1839 for the

, the first railway line into Newcastle. It was the work of architects

, who were also responsible for Willington Dene. The arches were rebuilt in wrought iron between 1867 and 1869 by the Weardale Iron & Coal Company to the designs of engineer

Thomas Elliot Harrison Thomas Elliot Harrison (4 April 1808 – 20 March 1888) was an English engineer. Born in Fulham, London, he was raised in the north east of England, where his father was a promoter of early railway companies; after an apprenticeship under Willi ...

for the

North Eastern Railway Company The North Eastern Railway (NER) was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854 by the combination of several existing railway companies. Later, it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railwa ...

(NER), the successor to the Newcastle and North Shields Railway. At the same time, the NER was quadruple-tracking this section of line and so doubled the width of the viaduct. The route is now part of the

. The success of the timber spans led other engineers to use the technique, though few such structures survive. The Greens proposed a similar timber viaduct to span the River Tyne in Newcastle city centre but the scheme never came to fruition. Ouseburn Viaduct is the northernmost of three high-level bridges crossing the valley in close proximity—the Byker road bridge is the furthest south and the

Byker Viaduct The Byker Viaduct (also known as the Byker Metro Bridge) is a curved S-shaped light railway bridge, which carries the Tyne and Wear Metro over the River Ouseburn in Newcastle upon Tyne. It carries the line from Manors Metro station in the cit ...

was built between the two for the

Tyne and Wear Metro The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The owners Nexus have ...

in the 1970s. The viaduct is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, a status which grants it legal protection.

References

Bibliography

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Citations

{{WikidataCoord, display=title, name = Ouseburn Viaduct Railway bridges in Tyne and Wear Grade II* listed buildings in Tyne and Wear Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne John and Benjamin Green buildings and structures Grade II* listed railway bridges and viaducts