Willington Dene Viaduct | |
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Coordinates | 54°59′39″N1°30′17″W / 54.99404°N 1.504797°W |
Carries | Tyne and Wear Metro |
Crosses | Wallsend Burn |
Locale | Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England |
History | |
Opened | 18 June 1839 |
Location | |
Willington Dene Viaduct carries the Tyne and Wear Metro railway over the Wallsend Burn between Wallsend and Howdon, Tyne and Wear. Designed by architects John and Benjamin Green, it was originally built in the late 1830s for the Newcastle & North Shields Railway. [1] It is a Grade II listed building. [2]
The viaduct is 1,048 ft (319 m) long and 76 ft (23 m) high with seven segmental arches each of 120 ft (37 m) span. When originally built the viaducts were made of laminated timber construction on the Wiebeking system supported on tall stone pillars and cost £25,000. Each arch was made from 14 layers of 22 by 3.5 inches (559 mm × 89 mm) timbers held together by trenails and built by Messrs. Robson. A paper on the viaducts's design won Benjamin Green a silver Telford Medal from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1841.
The viaduct was rebuilt in wrought iron between 1867 and 1869 by the Weardale Iron & Coal Company to the designs of engineer Thomas Elliot Harrison, preserving the bridge's original shape and form. It now carries the Tyne and Wear Metro rapid transport system between Newcastle and North Shields.
Wallsend is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies 4 miles east of Newcastle upon Tyne.
North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend.
The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland. The network opened in stages from August 1980 and now serves a total of 60 stations, with two lines covering 77.5 km (48.2 mi) of track. The Metro can be accessed from a mixture of underground and above-ground stations. It has been described as the "first modern light rail system in the United Kingdom". The system is currently owned and operated by the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, thus is fully under public ownership and operation.
The High Level Bridge is a road and railway bridge spanning the River Tyne between Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead in North East England. It was built by the Hawks family from 5,050 tons of iron. George Hawks, Mayor of Gateshead, drove in the last key of the structure on 7 June 1849, and the bridge was officially opened by Queen Victoria later that year.
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The Newcastle & North Shields Railway opened in June 1839 from a temporary terminus in Carliol Square in Newcastle upon Tyne to North Shields. The railway was absorbed by the Newcastle & Berwick Railway in November 1844. The Newcastle & Berwick Railway was itself absorbed by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, and this became part of the North Eastern Railway in 1854.
Howdon is a largely residential area in the eastern part of Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England. It consists of High Howdon and the smaller settlement of East Howdon. Much of the High Howdon area was formerly called Willington prior to post-World War II urbanisation. The North Tyneside ward population at the 2011 Census was 11,129.
Willington Quay is an area in the borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear in northern England. It is on the north bank of the River Tyne, facing Jarrow, and between Wallsend and North Shields. It is served by the Howdon Metro station in Howdon. The area from 2006 onwards has been an area of new housing built on brownfield sites. The house building continues into 2013 and is changing the social and economic balance in the area. The area has also had a make over of the bowling green off Howdon Lane and further warehousing next to the bowling green has been demolished to make way for further new housing. The changes made recently at Willington Quay are now making it an attractive place to live within North Tyneside.
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John and Benjamin Green were a father and son who worked in partnership as architects in North East England during the early nineteenth century. John, the father was a civil engineer as well as an architect. Although they did carry out some commissions separately, they were given joint credit for many of their projects, and it is difficult to attribute much of their work to a single individual. In general, John Green worked on civil engineering projects, such as road and rail bridges, whereas Benjamin worked on projects that were more purely architectural. Their work was predominantly church and railway architecture, with a sprinkling of public buildings that includes their masterpiece, Newcastle's Theatre Royal.
Monkwearmouth Railway Bridge is a railway bridge built in 1879, crossing the River Wear at Sunderland and Monkwearmouth. The bridge lies adjacent to and upstream of the Wearmouth Road Bridge.
Victoria Viaduct, originally known as the Victoria Bridge, is a stone arch rail viaduct spanning the River Wear about 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of Washington in the City of Sunderland North East England. It was built as part of the Durham Junction Railway under the supervision of Thomas Elliot Harrison.
The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was an early British mineral railway, that ran from Stanhope in County Durham, to South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne. The object was to convey limestone from Stanhope and coal from West Consett and elsewhere to the Tyne, and to local consumers. Passengers were later carried on parts of the line.
Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan area covering the cities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland, as well as North and South Tyneside, Gateshead and Washington.
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The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interests controlled by George Hudson, the so-called Railway King. In collaboration with the York and North Midland Railway and other lines he controlled, he planned that the YN&BR would form the major part of a continuous railway between London and Edinburgh. At this stage the London terminal was Euston Square and the route was through Normanton. This was the genesis of the East Coast Main Line, but much remained to be done before the present-day route was formed, and the London terminus was altered to King's Cross.
The Hownsgill Viaduct is a former railway bridge located west of Consett in County Durham, England. It is currently used as a footpath and cycleway.
Ouseburn Viaduct carries the East Coast Main Line over the Ouseburn Valley through the East End of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Designed by architects John and Benjamin Green, it was originally built in the late 1830s for the Newcastle and North Shields Railway. It is a Grade II* listed building.