Bridges and viaducts › Wharncliffe Viaduct
Wharncliffe Viaduct
Brunel's brick viaduct over the Brent valley at Hanwell, opened in 1838: eight semi-elliptical arches of 70 ft (21.3 m), about 886 ft (270 m) long and about 65 ft (20 m) high.
- Opened
- 1838 (built 1836-37); widened on the north side in 1877
- Line
- Great Western Main Line
- Kind
- Brick arches with stone dressings
- Length
- About 886 ft (270 m)
- Arches
- Eight semi-elliptical, each 70 ft (21.3 m) across
- Height
- About 65 ft (20 m)
- Width
- 30 ft (9.1 m) as built; 55 ft (17 m) since the 1877 widening
- Train drawn
- Elizabeth line Class 345
unverified Some of these figures haven’t yet been checked against an official source or a published history. What’s in doubt ↓
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Close up
At 10 px a metre, the scale of the train drawings, so the train is the size it is on its own page. Each is cut from the same drawing.
Sources
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- The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Francis Whishaw (Wikisource transcription), 1840, pp. 149-150eight semi-elliptical arches of 70 ft span rising 19 ft; rings 36 in at the crown; piers in hollow panels, averaging 13 ft thick; ground to springing 40 ft 6 in; footings 10 ft deep, 9 ft beyond the faces; about 886 ft long; foundations' foot to parapet's top 81 ft; 30 ft between parapets; parapets 18 in thick; wing walls
- The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer Isambard Brunel (jr), Longmans, Green (Project Gutenberg 41210), 1870, p. 17265 ft high; eight semi-elliptical arches each 70 ft span and 17 ft 6 in rise; hollow piers; longitudinal spandrel walls; drawings in Simms' Public Works of Great Britain (1838), pl. 54-56, and Bourne (1846)
- A History of the Great Western Railway G. A. Sekon, 1895, pp. 12-14, 42896 ft long, 30 ft wide, ravine 70 ft deep; spring 18 ft, span 70 ft; piers 13 ft 6 in thick at the foot and 10 ft 6 in at the springing; arch 5 ft 9 in at the haunch and 3 ft at the crown; each pier a pair of columns on a brick platform under a stone capital, architrave and skewback; string course over the arches; parapet with a square stone coping (an 1838 description quoted)
- History and Description of the Great Western Railway J. C. Bourne, quoted by the University of Reading Special Collections, 1846the arches elliptical, eight, 70 ft span, 17 ft 6 in rise; each pier two square massive brick pillars, slightly pyramidal
- Wharncliffe Viaduct (list entry 1358811, Grade I) Historic England, read 8 November 2026886 ft; eight semi-elliptical arches of 70 ft span rising 19 ft; 81 ft to the parapet; 30 ft wide, widened on the north side in 1877 (now 55 ft); pylon piers, two to a pier, now three; brown brick, stone imposts, cornices and copings; Lord Wharncliffe's arms at the centre of the south face
- OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), read 8 November 2026the length on the line, 803 ft (244.9 m); the Brent 680 ft (207.3 m) from the west end; the relief lines (north pair) 85 and 90 mph (145 km/h), the main lines (south pair) 125 mph (201 km/h); electrified
- EU-DEM v1.1 (25 m) digital elevation model, served by OpenTopoData European Union Copernicus programme (EU-DEM), via OpenTopoData, read 8-9 November 2026the valley's profile 197 ft (60 m) south of the line (197 ft (60 m) north and on the line read for comparison)
unverified
- The length: OSM's viaduct tracks are 803.8 ft (245 m), so each abutment is drawn 85.0 ft long; the published lengths, 886 ft (Whishaw 1840, the list entry) and 896 ft (Sekon 1895), are 82-92 ft longer and may run over the wing walls. Brunel's contract elevation (Network Rail Archive NRCA130019) would settle it.
- The rise: 17 ft 6 in (Bourne 1846; the Life of Brunel 1870) is drawn; Whishaw (1840) and the list entry give 19 ft, Sekon 18 ft. The crown is kept at Whishaw's 59 ft 6 in above the ground either way.
- The arches are drawn as true half-ellipses; Brunel's may be three- or five-centred curves of the same span and rise.
- The ground under each pier is EU-DEM 82 ft (25 m), 197 ft (60 m) south of the line (smoothed; within about 9 ft 10 in (3 m)), hung from the lowest pier (pier 7, by the Brent), where the formation is taken to be 65 ft up (the Life of Brunel). Whishaw's single 40 ft 6 in to the springing suggests flatter ground than EU-DEM's 11 ft fall from pier 1 to pier 7.
- The crown's depth below formation (5 ft 6 in) and the parapet's height (6 ft above the formation) are worked out from Whishaw's 81 ft and 10 ft of footings and the Life's 65 ft, not measured.
- The pier batter (1 in 27 a face) is Sekon's 13 ft 6 in at the foot and 10 ft 6 in at the springing over Whishaw's 40 ft 6 in; 'the foot' is taken to be the ground.
- The arch ring is drawn 3 ft deep all round (Whishaw's 36 in at the crown); he and Sekon give it nearly double at the haunches (5 ft 9 in), probably in the backing behind the face.
- The capitals (stone, 'swelling out with a gentle sweep' to a torus, an architrave and a skewback block, Sekon's 1838 quotation) are drawn as one plain impost band 3 ft deep and 1 ft proud; the string course 1 ft 6 in; neither measured.
- The River Brent's place is OSM's line (679 ft (207 m) from the west end, under arch 8); its width (about 26 ft 3 in (8 m)) is an estimate.
- The ends: the embankments are drawn ending at the abutments' outer ends at the wing walls' 1 in 10 (Whishaw), the wing walls themselves not drawn; how far they run and whether they splay or continue the face (the 82-92 ft the published lengths add?) needs a photograph or Brunel's elevation.
- The colours are not read off a photograph: a brown brick and pale stone dressings, from the list entry's 'brown brick with stone imposts'.
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