Railway Viaduct

SP57NW A 426 1641/9/10026 Rugby 28-FEB-00 Railway Viaduct

II

Railway viaduct.1839-40, by C.B Vignoles for the Midland Railway Company. Constructed od red brick with a facing of blue engineering brick (Staffordshire blues), except for the arch soffits; sandstone dressings. Eleven elliptical arches with tapering piers and stone imposts. Stone coping to the parapet. A completely unaltered early double track viaduct in very good condition. This viaduct formed part of the Midland Counties Railway which was built between Derby and Nottingham via Trent Junction south to Leicester and Rugby. This section betweem Leicester and Rugby which gave access to Euston via the London and Birmingham Railway opened in June 1840. With opening the same year of the Morth Midland Railway from Derby and York this viaduct was for a time part of the main trunk route from London to Yorkshire, not fully replaced until the opening of the Great London Railway in 1850.The Midland Counties Railway was a founding constituent of the Midland Railway in 1844. C.B Vignoles was an important early railway engineer who only worked on British railways for a relatively short time. The Midland Counties Railway had only two large bridges on this line, Trent bridge which was rebuilt in the 1890's and this one which survives unaltered. This is partly because its decline in importance after 1850 and partly because of the closure between Rugby and Wigston Junction in 1962.The viaduct is and an excellent example of an early viaduct of the Stephenson school, Vignoles has worked on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and it meets the criteria for listing because of its age, design quality, unaltered nature and its association with an important engineer and railway company. References: Jack Simmons and Gordon Biddle (eds), The Oxford Companion to Railway History, OUP, 1997, Midland Counties Railway and Vignoles

Listing NGR: SP5017376553