, image = Chirk Viaduct.jpg , size = , caption = Chirk Viaduct from Chirk Aqueduct , coordinates = , mapwidth = , location =

Chirk Chirk ( cy, Y Waun) is a town and community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, south of Wrexham, between it and Oswestry. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 4,468. Historically in the traditional county of Denbighshire, and later Clwy ...

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and

Chirk Bank Chirk Bank is a small village in Shropshire, England. The industrial town of Chirk is to the north, over the border in Wales, with the B5070 road connecting the two settlements via a bridge (Chirk Bridge) over the River Ceiriog. The larger vill ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, nearest_city =

, current_use =

Railway viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

, rebuilt = 1858–1859 (partly) , built = 1848 , built_for =

Shrewsbury and Chester Railway The North Wales Mineral Railway was formed to carry coal and ironstone from the mineral-bearing area around Wrexham to the River Dee wharves. It was extended to run from Shrewsbury and formed part of a main line trunk route, under the title ...

, designation1 = UK Grade II* , designation1_offname = Railway Viaduct over River Ceiriog (Cadw) and Chirk Viaduct (Historic England) , designation1_date = 29 July 1998 and 2 September 1987
Amended 29 July 1998 , designation1_number = 20210

Cadw (, a Welsh verbal noun meaning "keeping/preserving") is the historic environment service of the Welsh Government and part of the Tourism and Culture group. works to protect the historic buildings and structures, the landscapes and heritage s ...

"Details from listed building database (20210)"
Retrieved 3 June 2022. and 1295219

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

"Chirk Viaduct, Weston Rhyn – 1295219"
Retrieved 4 June 2022. (dual-listed) , native_name = , architect =

Henry Robertson Henry Robertson (11 June 1816 – 22 March 1888) was a Scottish mining engineer and prolific railway builder, industrialist and Liberal Party politician. He was head of Brymbo Steelworks, Wrexham. He was co-founder of Beyer-Peacock, with Charl ...

, height = , gbgridref = SJ286372 , gbgridref_note = The Chirk Viaduct ( cy, Traphont y Waun) is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

railway viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

over the

River Ceiriog The River Ceiriog ( cy, Afon Ceiriog) is an long river in north east Wales, whose name may derive from a term meaning "favoured one". It is a tributary of the River Dee. It rises at an altitude of around on the south east slopes of Moel Ffern ...

between

and

. The viaduct carries the

Shrewsbury–Chester line The Shrewsbury–Chester line ( cy, Llinell Amwythig i Gaer) is a railway line between Chester and Shrewsbury in England, with the line passing through Wrexham County Borough in Wales. Passenger train services are operated by Transport for Wale ...

from the Welsh town of

in historic Denbighshire from the north to the English village of

Weston Rhyn Weston Rhyn is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It lies between the towns of Chirk, in Wales, and Oswestry, in England. The civil parish, which also includes Bronygarth, Pentre-Newydd and a number of small hamlets, had ...

to the south.

Chirk Aqueduct Chirk Aqueduct is a high and long navigable aqueduct that carries what is now the Llangollen Canal across the Ceiriog Valley near Chirk, on the England-Wales border, spanning the two countries. History The aqueduct was designed by civil engine ...

lies parallel to the viaduct's east.

Description

The viaduct was designed by

, chief engineer of the

, to carry the

railway line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

across the

meadow A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artifi ...

s of the Vale of Ceiriog between Chirk and Chirk Bank partly in both Wales and England. The

England–Wales border The England–Wales border ( cy, Y ffin rhwng Cymru a Lloegr; shortened: Ffin Cymru a Lloegr), sometimes referred to as the Wales–England border or the Anglo-Welsh border, runs for from the Dee estuary, in the north, to the Severn estuary i ...

bisects the structure at an approximately 45° angle from south-west to north-east. It was built between 1846 and 1848, by

Thomas Brassey Thomas Brassey (7 November 18058 December 1870) was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about o ...

, with it also undergoing a partial rebuilding in 1858–1859. The viaduct runs parallel to the

, built in 1801, which lies to the viaduct's east. The viaduct was initially built with only ten arches, despite the original design to contain sixteen

stone arch An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct (a ...

es. Before construction, the initial sixteen-arch structure was reduced to ten over engineering issues concerning the river piers. In Robertson's original design it would have required two piers being constructed into the slopes of the valleys either side. Due to the slope's proximity to neighbouring Chirk Aqueduct and the shaky state of its

abutment An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

s, it was deemed during the initial construction that constructing two piers would have been dangerous work and expensive. As a result, the design was modified with the viaduct's end piers at the foot of the valley's

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

, converted into an abutment, and a long laminated timber arch built to connect to the stone viaduct. The timber arches were later replaced ten years later, with three stone arches at either end added, bringing the total number of arches to sixteen as first designed. The viaduct, along with the Cefn Viaduct to the north, were built for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway to address the demand for increasing

rail freight transport Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

demand between Wrexham, Chester and Shrewsbury which were not being met by the existing

canal system Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

. The railway line became part of the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

(GWR) in 1854, and was not converted to GWR's

Broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

Design

The viaduct contains rock-faced

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone with yellow engineering brick to

soffit A soffit is an exterior or interior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of any construction element. Its archetypal form, sometimes incorporating or implying the projection of beams, is the underside of eaves (to ...

s of its central section. It stands at high above the river, with its central section consisting of ten

elliptic In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special type of ellipse in ...

semicircular In mathematics (and more specifically geometry), a semicircle is a one-dimensional locus of points that forms half of a circle. The full arc of a semicircle always measures 180° (equivalently, radians, or a half-turn). It has only one line of ...

arches between

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

ed abutments, and built in 1848. The central arches contain rock-faced pointed

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

s, projecting keystones and moulded imposts struck through to soffit;

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and plain

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. The abutments have shallow pediments supported on

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

led cornices and round-headed niches with mounded impost bands and projecting moulded keystones. There are three further stone arches at each end, which were added in 1858–1859 replacing the pre-existing timber arches. The viaduct is long.

References

{{Wrexham, state=collapsed Bridges completed in 1848 Bridges in Shropshire Bridges in Wrexham County Borough Chirk Grade II* listed bridges in England Grade II* listed bridges in Wales Grade II* listed buildings in Shropshire Grade II* listed buildings in Wrexham County Borough Grade II* listed railway bridges and viaducts Railway viaducts in England Railway viaducts in Wales