Moorgates Cattle Arch

Moorgates Cattle Arch is a Grade II listed structure located in Goathland, originally built as a railway bridge around 1845 for the York and North Midland Railway Company. The arch is constructed from rusticated sandstone with tooled dressings and features a single semicircular arch made of shaped voussoirs set on chamfered imposts, flanked by pilaster buttresses. A moulded cornice runs beneath a plain parapet that has sloped coping. The buttresses extend through the cornice, forming terminal piers for the parapet. Raked quadrant abutments with flat coping lead to square piers that serve as retaining walls on either side, each topped with shallow pyramidal caps. This bridge was designed to allow the movement of cattle without the need to drive them across the railway line, which was originally part of the Whitby to Pickering railway line, later replaced in 1865 by the improved Deviation Line.