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Shin Railway Viaduct

Railway Viaduct (19th Century)

Site Name Shin Railway Viaduct

Classification Railway Viaduct (19th Century)

Alternative Name(s) River Oykel; Oykel Viaduct; Kyle Of Sutherland; Invershin

Canmore ID 13013

Site Number NH59NE 30

NGR NH 57886 95265

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/13013

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Creich (Sutherland)
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Sutherland
  • Former County Sutherland

Archaeology Notes

NH59NE 30 57886 95265

Location formerly cited as NH 5785 9524 to NH 5794 9530, and as NH 57893 95274.

Oykel Viaduct [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1992.

(Location cited as NH 579 953). Shin Viaduct, built 1867 for the Sutherland Rly. by engineers Joseph Mitchell and Murdoch Paterson. It is an iron-truss bridge of length 230 ft (70.1m) with two tall semicircular-arched approach spans at the S end and three at the N.

J R Hume 1977.

This viaduct was built to carry the Dingwall-Wick extension of the Inverness and Ross-shire Rly across the Kyle of Sutherland; it opened to traffic on 13 April 1868, was strengthened by the addition of further ironwork in 1912-13, and remains in use. It comprises a 280 ft (85.3m) lattice girder main span and five stone approach arches, each of 30 ft (9.1m) span.

M Smith 1994.

This viaduct carries the Inverness - Wick and Thurso ('Far North') line of the former Highland Rly across the Kyle of Sutherland, which here forms the boundary between the parishes of Creich and Kincardine (both within the former county of Sutherland). It remains in regular use by passenger traffic.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 29 January 2001.

The location assigned to this record defines the midpoint of the structure. The available map evidence indicates that it extends from NH c. 57857 95242 to NH c. 57914 95287.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 21 April 2006.

Activities

Construction (1867)

Erected 1867. Wrought iron lattice railway bridge built as part of the The Sutherland Railway Co. line.

R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.

Publication Account (2007)

Oykell Viaduct, Invershin

(Institute Civil Engineers Historic Engineering Works no. HEW 2551), NH 5789 9527

Oykell or Shin Viaduct is an outstanding Scottish example of an early wrought-iron lattice girder viaduct. It crosses the Kyle of Sutherland with a single 230 ft span and is flanked by tall semicircular masonry arches, two to the south and three to the north. The masonry is of coursed rubble with dressed stone arch-rings. The engineer was Joseph Mitchell and his partner Murdoch Paterson.

The bridge included the longest of Mitchell’s lattice girder spans, 20 ft longer than that at Dalguise Viaduct four years earlier. Unusually, the deck here is on the top of rather than between the trusses. It joins two stations, Culrain and Invershin which are only a 14 -mile apart. Culrain Station was built specifically to provide local people with a means of crossing the Kyle as the bridge is the only one for several miles in either direction. A plaque at the bridge reads ‘Erected AD1867 by The Sutherland Railway Co. Mainly promoted by George Granville William, The Duke and twenty first Earl of Sutherland’.

R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.

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