Forgotten History – Conisbrough Railway Viaduct

In this video we present a feature from the height and depths of Conisbrough England.

We visit the grandure of this viaduct with 21 arches, 14 to the north side of its girder span and seven to the south, Conisbrough Viaduct formed part of a connection between the Hull & Barnsley Railway and those of the Great Northern and Great Eastern.

At 1,527 feet in length, The arches of 55 feet span built of red brick work faced with blue bricks. Totalling over 11,000,000 bricks and 2,000 tons of cement were used in the construction of the viaduct.
It may be interesting to note that the viaduct was constructed mainly from an overhead cableway (Blondin) which is now a great feature in bridgebuilding work. It had a span of 1,875 feet and stretched entirely across the valley, whilst at the same time the Blondin was capable of lifting a weight of three tons and carrying it to different parts of the work. – many sourced locally and each one put in place by contractors Henry Lovat Ltd.

Opened on 17th March 1909, the route served the Dearne Valley Railway over the River Don which was a proposed route for a inland port at Sheffield.

The passenger service across the viaduct was withdrawn in September 1951 but the line over the viaduct remained open for freight until 1966.

Whilst the collieries that the line served were still open, subsidence at the viaduct prompted its abandonment, and a new junction was built at the northern end of the line to allow traffic to operate from the northern end only.

The viaduct was under threat in the 1980’s when the presence of dwarf elder trees in the brickwork led to the possibility of the viaduct being demolished.

In April 1985, the disused viaduct was transferred to the British Railways Board, and in 2010, Sustrans tarmacked the viaduct as part of the route becoming a long-distance walking and cycling path.

Notably in 2015, the viaduct was the setting for a murder scene in the TV series DCI Banks.

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