Ouseburn Viaduct

The viaduct was first built between 1837 and 1839 for the Newcastle and North Shields Railway, the first railway line into Newcastle. It was the work of architects John and Benjamin Green, 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 for the North Eastern Railway Company (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 success of the timber spans led other engineers to use the technique, though few such structures…

The viaduct is 360 yd long. It crosses the Ouseburn, a minor tributary of the River Tyne, and its valley on five arches, reaching a maximum height of 108 ft from the base of the piers to the rails. Three of the arches have a span of 116 ft each and the remaining two span 114 ft each, with a maximum rise of 32 ft. 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, built for the same railway a few miles further east at Wallsend, but is otherwise of a very similar design. The arches are supported on sandstone ashlar piers which are heavily sloped and…