Photos

It was cold and a storm was clearly brewing as we reached Ribblehead. Even the sheep looked brassed off, and they're supposed to be used to it!

Ribblehead Viaduct is a railway viaduct across the valley of the River Ribble at Ribblehead, in North Yorkshire, northern England. The viaduct is a Grade II listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Ribblehead viaduct is 440 yards (400 m) long, and 104 feet (32 m) above the valley floor at its highest point. It is made up of twenty-four arches of 45 feet (14 m) span, with foundations 15 feet (4.6 m) deep. The north end of the viaduct is 13 feet (4.0 m) higher in elevation than the south end. It was designed by the engineer John Sydney Crossley. The first stone was laid on 12 October 1870 and the last in 1874. One thousand Navvies building the viaduct established shanty towns on the moors for themselves and their families. They named the towns after victories of the Crimean War, sarcastically for posh districts of London, and Biblical names. There were smallpox epidemics and deaths from industrial accidents; meaning that the church graveyard at Chapel-le-Dale had to be extended. One hundred navvies were killed during the construction of the viaduct.

In 1964, several brand new cars being carried on a freight train that was crossing the viaduct were blown off the wagons they were being carried upon and landed on the ground by the viaduct.

(Info from Wikipedia)

B/W negative scanned on a Nikon film scanner.