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Auchendinny Viaduct
Railway Viaduct (19th Century) - (20th Century)
Site Name Auchendinny Viaduct
Classification Railway Viaduct (19th Century) - (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) River North Esk; Woodhouselee Viaduct; Firth Viaduct
Canmore ID 211521
Site Number NT26SE 98
NGR NT 25829 61614
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/211521
- Council Midlothian
- Parish Glencorse
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District Midlothian
- Former County Midlothian
NT26SE 98 25829 61614
For adjacent tunnel (to W), see NT26SE 46.
Viaduct [NAT]
OS 1:10,000 map, 1979.
The viaduct formerly carried the Penicuik branch of the North British Rly (now a public walkway) over the River North Esk to the SE of Auchendinny village (NT26SE 88) and to the N of Old Woodhouselee Castle (NT26SE 10). The river here forms the boundary between the parishes of Glencorse (to the W) and Lasswade (to the E).
The Penicuik branch (from Rosewell and Hawthornden) was built by the Penicuik Rly, and closed to regular passenger traffic on 10 September 1951.
The location assigned to this record defines the apparent midpoint of the structure. The available map evidence indicates that it extends from NT c. 25739 61604 to NT c. 25848 61620.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 15 May 2006.
G Daniels and L Dench 1980.
Construction (1872)
Viaduct built crossing the River Esk as part of the North British Railway Penicuik Branch.
Project (2007)
This project was undertaken to input site information listed in 'Civil engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' by R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Publication Account (2007)
Firth Viaduct, Auchendinny is a ten-arch masonry viaduct crossing the Esk on a curve at a height of 66 ft was built in 1872 by the North British Railway on its Penicuik Branch. The arches are all of 35 ft span and semicircular with brick arch-rings similar to those introduced by Miller 25 years earlier. A curious feature of the viaduct is that the three piers in the river are on the skew, lining in with the direction of flow. This means that there are two skew spans over the river; two hybrid half-skew and half-square spans; and, all others, square spans. The hybrid spans are of unusual arch-ring brick construction in that one elevation of the arch is longer than the corresponding elevation on the other side because of the arch geometry. The viaduct was
designed by the company’s consulting engineer, Thomas Bouch.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
