Wolverton Viaduct is a railway bridge carrying the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

over the River Great Ouse to the north of

Wolverton Wolverton is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, England. It is located at the northern edge of Milton Keynes, beside the West Coast Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the river Great Ouse. It is the administrative seat of Wolverton and G ...

, part of the

City of Milton Keynes The City of Milton Keynes is a unitary authority area with both borough and city status, in Buckinghamshire. It is the northernmost district of the South East England Region. The borough abuts Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and the remainder ...

, in south-eastern England. Built in 1837 for the

London and Birmingham Railway The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR). The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...

under the supervision of

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...

, it is one of the largest and most notable structures on the route and is a grade II

listed building 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 ...

Description

Crossing the River Great Ouse and its broad valley was one of the largest engineering challenges to face the

(LBR) and

, its chief engineer. Stephenson raised the tracks on a large

embankment Embankment may refer to: Geology and geography * A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea * Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...

, high and long, broken by the Wolverton Viaduct to cross the river itself. The viaduct consists of six elliptical arches and is long and rises to above the river. It is built from red brick in the

English Bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by siz ...

pattern and partially dressed in red sandstone. Repairs have been made with blue engineering bricks. The arches stand on rectangular piers, wide at the crown and tapering to at the base. The piers have "D"-shaped

cutwater In architecture, a starling (or sterling) is a defensive bulwark, usually built with pilings or bricks, surrounding the supports (or piers) of a bridge or similar construction. Starlings may be shaped to ease the flow of the water around the brid ...

s. The bridge has a stone- coped parapet which is broken at regular intervals to provide refuges. The piers at each end are much larger and have additional stonework including a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

. There are substantial

abutments 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 ...

at each end, into which are cut four small, rounded arches with a span. The first two of these rise from a solid wall and start at half the height of the main arches. The third arch is of full height and the fourth is partially buried. A cornice runs the length of the bridge, embellished with

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian R ...

lation (carved blocks) where the terminating piers meet the abutments.

History

The viaduct was built for the LBR, whose chief engineer was

, and opened in 1838. The LBR became a constituent of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1846. The LNWR doubled the width of the line to four tracks between London and and the viaduct was widened on its western side between 1879 and 1882 in keeping with the original design. The extension is entirely in blue brick and the join can be clearly seen from underneath as the extension is not bonded to the original structure. The route (now the

) was electrified by British Rail in 1958 and masts were attached to the viaduct to carry overhead lines. The viaduct was one of the features illustrated by John Cooke Bourne's ''Series of Lithographic Drawings on the London and Birmingham Railway'' in 1839. Despite the alterations, the appearance of the viaduct has changed little since Bourne's depiction. Its design is similar to Brandon Viaduct to the north west, between Rugby and

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

but Wolverton's is the longest and tallest viaduct, and the one with the most and widest arches, of several similar structures built by the LBR.

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 w ...

describes the bridge as "one of the principal landmarks of the first trunk railway and one of the earliest viaducts on this scale". Gordon Biddle, a railway historian, described it as a "graceful structure" and the "most prominent LBR monument" in the vicinity of

, a town dominated by railways. The terminating piers and large abutments decorated with arches are common features to several of Stephenson's viaducts on the LBR and show an early form of design standardisation. The bridge has been a grade II

for its historical and architectural interest since July 2001.

References

{{Reflist 1837 establishments in England Bridges completed in 1837 Bridges across the River Great Ouse Bridges in Buckinghamshire Wolverton Buildings and structures in Milton Keynes Grade II listed bridges Railway viaducts in Buckinghamshire London and Birmingham Railway