Ouse Valley Viaduct

In July 1837, an act of Parliament, the London and Brighton Railway Act 1837 (7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. cxix), was passed which gave the London and Brighton Railway company permission to construct its proposed railway line between London and the south coast. (equivalent to £ in ). The viaduct was designed as an elegant structure, being around in length and carrying a straight line over 37 identical arches. Each of these semi-circular arches had a span of and was supported upon tapered red-brick piers. The foundation of each pier is provided with two courses of inclined footings, which have a total depth of just over . and RAIL 386/6). The core construction was complete at the beginning of December 1840, the Brighton Gazette reporting: The original contract of works dated 21 January 1839 (East Sussex Records Office ACC 8894/3/1) specified the stone work to have come from UK quarries but this changed to Caen stone from Normandy in France. This material was used for the classically balustraded parapets, string courses, pier caps and the four small rectangular Italianate pavilions. There appear to have been delays in sourcing this and other materials as a minute in the Meetings of Directors 1838–1844 (RAIL 386/6) notes on 15 July 1841 that: Rastrick created a moving scaffold for the masons to continue the work with a single line in use. A report in the Brighton Gazette on 12 August 1841 noted that both lines were then in operation. ==Opening==

The Brighton Main Line was opened in two sections because completion was delayed by the need to complete major earthworks, in particular the tunnel at Haywards Heath. The viaduct was officially opened when the section between Norwood Junction and Haywards Heath was opened on 12 July 1841. By 1846 the viaduct had become part of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. In 1923 as a result of the Railways Act 1921, it became part of the Southern Railway network. It remained under Southern's ownership until January 1948, when the nationalisation of the Big Four railway companies formed the publicly owned railway operator British Railways. ==Maintenance and restoration==

The first major restoration work occurred during the 1890s, and was focused on repairs to the brickwork. Engineers of the late Victorian era were concerned that the original lime mortar used in the viaduct's construction was inadequate and the decision was made to replace it with cement mortar. However, the replacement facing brickwork and substandard mortar eventually caused its own failures prompting more expensive repairs later on. By the 1980s, the eight pavilions present on the viaduct were in such a poor condition that some of their roofs had fallen in and the installation of internal props was required to halt their further collapse. and English Heritage. Some of the piers had to be reconstructed because of failures in the Victorian brickwork. The new bricks were handmade in a variety of sizes to suit the existing brickwork and set in sand, cement, and lime mortar; stainless steel anchoring was used to firmly fix the new stone to the old stonework. In 2010 it was noted that the degradation was partially a consequence of the structure's long lifespan: when originally constructed in the 1840s, its intended design life was only 120 years. ==Media appearances==

The bridge on the cover art of Lovejoy's EP, ''Wake Up & It's Over'' was based on the Ouse Valley Viaduct. ==See also==