Bennerley Viaduct

Bennerley Viaduct is a railway viaduct built in 1877 to carry the Great Northern Railway’s Derbyshire and Staffordshire line over the River Erewash on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border. It was designed by Samuel Abbott, resident engineer to the Great Northern Railway Company (GNR), with input from the company’s chief engineer, Richard Johnson.

The viaduct is primarily constructed of wrought iron, resting on foundations of concrete, blue brick, and stone. The piers and abutments are built from red and blue brick. The viaduct is the largest and central element of a raised section of the railway line that originally included approach embankments at either end and a railway bridge to the west; remnants of the embankments and the railway bridge structure remain but are not included in the listed designation.

The viaduct consists of sixteen lattice deck spans supported by fifteen evenly-spaced latticework piers. The ends of the spans are supported on brick structures. The west end features a tall blue brick pier with angled outer walls and brick parapets, which also forms part of the railway bridge located just west of the iron viaduct. The east end rests upon a red-brick abutment originally connected to a surviving section of embankment.

Each wrought iron pier comprises four parallel, diagonally-braced tapered frames linked by vertical and horizontal bracing. The top of each pier supports the viaduct deck, which is carried along the edges by long lattice girders. Low latticework parapet screens enclose the viaduct deck.