Langley Viaduct

Whenever I came back to Curlew Cottage from Eggleston I noticed a viaduct in the distance. I checked the map and found out that it is Langley Viaduct. One sunny afternoon I made the short trip from the cottage. It was however confirmed what was already clear from looking at the map. There is no access to the viaduct. So I took the photos from the spot marked with an X on the map.

It is a stunning eleven arch creation, designed by Sir Thomas Bouch for the North Eastern Railway as part of the Barnard Castle to Bishop Auckland line which opened on August 1, 1863.

Sir Thomas also designed the Tay Bridge. It was one-and-a-quarter miles long when it opened on June 1, 1878, proving to the mid-Victorians that their engineering skills were so great that they could now overcome any obstacle that Nature threw in their path.

Unfortunately, on December 28, 1879, the Tay Bridge collapsed, plunging 75 travellers to their deaths. Sir Thomas was stripped of his knighthood and died soon after of a broken heart; the Victorians were shaken in their engineering certainty.

The footpath across this viaduct is presently closed (unsafe structure). According to various articles on the Internet the whole of the route of the Bishop Auckland to Barnard Castle Railway (1863-1962) was to be upgraded to a Cycle Path but the project is put on hold. What a shame! Here is a link to a detailed article about it from 2019:

Railway walk across part of Teesdale is dropped from county masterplan - News - Teesdale Mercury