Sankey Viaduct
The Sankey Viaduct is a railway viaduct at Bradley Lane, Collins Green, Burtonwood parish, Warrington Borough, crossing the Sankey Brook into Earlestown, Newton le Willows, Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside.
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[edit] History
The viaduct was built between 1828 and 1830 by George Stephenson for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company to enable the railway to cross the line of the Sankey Canal with sufficient clearance for the Mersey flats, the sailing vessels for which the canal was constructed. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building and is the earliest major railway viaduct in the world.[1][2]
The canal itself was filled with household rubbish in the 1970s.
[edit] Construction
The viaduct is constructed from yellow and ginger sandstone and red brick, of 9 round-arched spandrels on sharply-battered piers and known locally as The Nine Arches.
[edit] Significance
As the Sankey Canal was the first canal of the Industrial Revolution, its crossing by the first purpose-built passenger railway in the world by means of this viaduct makes this a site of great significance in transport history.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Sankey Viaduct over Sankey Brook (that part in St Helens district)", The National Heritage List for England (English Heritage), 2011, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1075927, retrieved 30 April 2011
- ^ "Sankey Viaduct over Sankey Brook (that part in Warrington district)", The National Heritage List for England (English Heritage), 2011, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1230621, retrieved 30 April 2011
[edit] Books
Pottgießer, Hans (1985). Eisenbahnbrücken aus zwei Jahrhunderten [Railway Bridges from Two Centuries]. Basel, Boston, Stuttgart: Birkhäuser. pp. 18–19. ISBN 3764316772. (German)
[edit] External links
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