Durham Viaduct

The viaduct was built between 1854 and 1857 for the North Eastern Railway (NER). It was designed by Thomas Elliot Harrison, the NER's chief engineer and built by Richard Cail, a local contractor who was responsible for multiple works in the north-east. The viaduct was originally part of a branch line, the Durham to Bishop Auckland Line, but the main line was diverted over it when two new lines were opened—to Gateshead to the north, in 1868, and from Durham to Tursdale Junction and Darlington to the south in 1872. The route is now part of the East Coast Main Line. The viaduct is a Grade II* listed building, first designated on 19 February 1970. This status grants it legal protection.

The viaduct is 277 yd long and and 76 feet tall. It carries the railway over Durham city centre. It consists of eleven arches, supported on tapering piers. It is built from sandstone with ashlar dressings, and brick soffits in a design similar to the Royal Border Bridge further north on the same line. It has coped plinths at the top of the piers from which the arches spring and a continuous drip course in rock-faced stone. As-built, the viaduct had a stone-arched parapet but this was later replaced with iron except over the end piers. Attached to a pier west of North Road is a Gothic-style drinking fountain (now disused) which had formerly been attached to one of the piers supporting the…