place

Swithland Viaduct

Great Central RailwayGreat Central Railway (preserved)Railway viaducts in LeicestershireUse British English from November 2017
Swithland Viaduct
Swithland Viaduct

Swithland Viaduct is a railway viaduct in Leicestershire that carries the former Great Central Main Line over Swithland Reservoir. It is unusual in that it carries the line over a reservoir rather than a valley. It actually consists of two separate viaducts, with an embankment over Brazil Island in the centre of the reservoir. The line now carries the Great Central Railway. The viaducts (bridges No. 349 and 350) were constructed in c.1895/7 by Messrs John Aird & Sons, as a sub-contract to Henry Lovatt & Co. of Wolverhampton. Lovatts were contracted to the Great Central to execute contract number 2 on their extension line to London, East Leake to Aylestone, but the Corporation of Leicester insisted that those portions of the work that could delay or hinder the completion of their new water works at Swithland were to be executed by the main contractors for that job.The south viaduct has a skew girder section approximately halfway along its length, this having been provided to bridge the weir which separates the reservoir into two unequal portions. As of September 2015 extensive maintenance work is being carried out on this span in order to replace wasted plates within the girders, and this work is expected to carry on until the end of the year. Originally the lineside telegraph wires were carried along the eastern wall of the viaduct on wooden trunking, except where they were carried over the previously mentioned iron-girder span in structure 350. A telegraph pole, sat on top of the masonry of the parapet wall and guyed appropriately, was provided a short distance from each end of this span, and the circuits were then carried over the span between the two poles. Although little sign of these poles remains from on top of the viaduct, the remains of the guying on the exterior of the parapet wall can still be clearly seen from the reservoir. As part of the resignalling of much of the GCML, carried out in the early 1940s by Westinghouse to increase capacity, cable hangers were installed on the western walls of the viaducts, and the new lineside signalling and power cables required by the work were strung along them. This cable route was restored to work, albeit with new cables, during the recent resignalling of Swithland Sidings. As part of the same scheme a pair of mechanical signals (Swithland Sidings' Up Inner Distant and Up Outer Home) was installed on Brazil Island, between the two viaducts. Photography may be undertaken from the south from Main Street, or at very long range from the dam which carries Kinchley Lane. If one has a lineside permit, one can walk south from Quorn and photograph trains coming north off the viaduct. The viaduct itself however is out of bounds. The best location is probably from the east at Kinchley Hill but there is no public access there (the land is owned by Severn Trent)

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Swithland Viaduct (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Swithland Viaduct
The Ridings, Charnwood Swithland

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address External links Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Swithland ViaductContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.718055555556 ° E -1.1745833333333 °
placeShow on map

Address

Swithland Viaduct

The Ridings
LE12 8TJ Charnwood, Swithland
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

linkWikiData (Q7659131)
linkOpenStreetMap (663254851)

Swithland Viaduct
Swithland Viaduct
Share experience

Nearby Places

List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Leicestershire
List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a county in the East Midlands of England with an area of 833 square miles (2,160 km2), and a population according to the 2011 census of 980,000. Leicester City Council is a unitary authority, and the rest of the county is administered by Leicestershire County Council at the top level, with seven district councils in the second tier, Blaby, Charnwood, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Melton, North West Leicestershire and Oadby and Wigston.In England, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are designated by Natural England, a non-departmental public body which is responsible for protecting England's natural environment. Designation as an SSSI gives legal protection to the most important wildlife and geological sites. As of January 2018, there are seventy-six SSSIs in the county, fifty-seven of which are designated for their biology, twelve for their geology and seven for both criteria. There are nineteen Geological Conservation Review sites, six Nature Conservation Review sites, one Special Area of Conservation, three national nature reserves, two are common land, and three contain scheduled monuments. One site is a local nature reserve, thirteen are managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, and one by the National Trust. The largest site is Bradgate Park and Cropston Reservoir at 399.3 hectares (987 acres). It has rocks dating to the Ediacaran period around 600 million years ago, and is very important for the study of Precambrian palaeontology. The smallest is Gipsy Lane Pit at 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres), which is important to mineralogists as it is rich in sulphides, some of which are unidentified.

List of local nature reserves in Leicestershire
List of local nature reserves in Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a county in the East Midlands of England. The area of the administrative county is 806 square miles (2,090 km2) and the population according to the 2011 census is 980,000. Leicester City Council is a unitary authority, and the rest of the county is administered by Leicestershire County Council at the top level, with seven district councils in the second tier, Blaby, Charnwood, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Melton, North West Leicestershire and Oadby and Wigston.Local nature reserves (LNRs) are designated by local authorities under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The local authority must have a legal control over the site, by owning or leasing it or having an agreement with the owner. LNRs are sites which have a special local interest either biologically or geologically, and local authorities have a duty to care for them. They can apply local bye-laws to manage and protect LNRs.As of December 2017, there are 23 local nature reserves in the county. The largest is Burbage Common and Woods at 85 hectares (210 acres), where over 300 species of flowering plants, 250 of fungi, 100 of birds, 20 of butterflies and 15 of damselflies and dragonflies have been recorded. The smallest is Lucas Marsh with 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres), a former quarry which is part of Brock's Hill Country Park. All sites are open to the public, apart from Knighton Spinney, which is only accessible on occasional open days.