Willington Dene Viaduct

The viaduct was built from 1837 to 1839 for the Newcastle and North Shields Railway, the first railway line into Newcastle. To reach the city, it built Willington Dene Viaduct and the very similar Ouseburn Viaduct to carry the line over two valleys to the east. Willington crosses the Wallsend Burn around four miles (6.5 kilometres) from Newcastle, between Wallsend and Howdon. Both viaducts were designed by the architects John and Benjamin Green. When built, the viaduct was in laminated timber, using the Wiebeking system—one of the earliest British viaducts to do so. The timber beams were replaced with wrought iron spans from the Weardale Iron and Coal Company in a near-identical pattern…

The viaduct is 349 yd long and consists of seven arches—one of 128 ft span, four of 120 ft, and the remaining two of 115 ft. It reaches a maximum height of 82 ft. The Greens proposed a similar timber viaduct to span the River Tyne in Newcastle city centre but the scheme never came to fruition.