London Road Railway Viaduct

The London Road Railway Viaduct is a railway bridge built between 1845 and 1846 by John Rastrick. It is constructed from red and brown brick in English bond, with yellow brick and stone dressings, and some sections rebuilt in blue brick. The viaduct features a fifty-foot wide elliptical arch over Preston Road, along with 26 round arches that are thirty feet wide. It curves for four hundred yards from London Road station in the east to New England Road in the south-west.

All piers of the viaduct are battered and have oblong openings that are round-arched at both the top and bottom. Each pier is topped with an entablature that includes a stone architrave, cornice, and a brick frieze. The archivolt is made of yellow brick, and there is a dentil cornice of stone and brick above, finished with a balustrade of brick panels and balusters in between. The piers next to Preston Road are broader than the others and feature a pilaster-like projection with a recessed panel on the south side. One pier, the second west of Preston Road, was destroyed by bombing in 1943 but has since been repaired.

This viaduct is the largest engineering work on the London and Brighton railway branch to Lewes and is a significant structure in south-eastern England.