36-591: The Wharncliffe Viaduct is a brick-built viaduct that carries the Great Western Main Line railway across the Brent Valley , between Hanwell and Southall , Ealing , UK, at an elevation of 20 metres (66 ft). The viaduct, built in 1836–7, was constructed for the opening of the Great Western Railway (GWR). It is situated between Southall and Hanwell stations, the latter station being only
72-403: A World Heritage Site . On the nearby Uxbridge Road, an eighteenth-century coaching inn was renamed The Viaduct in its honour when the railway opened. This pub , which is itself listed as of local interest, still contains parts of the original stable block. The hollow cavities within the structure of the supporting piers provide convenient roosting places for bats . The Wharncliffe Viaduct
108-478: A ticket of leave and started as a chemist in Sydney . There he flourished, and some years later left it a rich man. Returning to England, he married a Quaker woman as his second wife. In 1845 he was convicted of the murder of his mistress, Sarah Hart, by administering prussic acid , his apparent motive being a dread of their relationship becoming known. Tawell fled the crime scene by train, but police were able to use
144-460: A New Road omnibus where Tawell mistook him for the conductor and gave him 6d for the fare. Tawell then went to a coffee tavern and later to a lodging house, all the while with Williams following. Williams came back the following morning with Inspector Wiggins of the Metropolitan Police and they eventually arrested Tawell in a nearby coffee house. At Tawell's trial, his murky past history
180-609: A cottage in Salt Hill , one mile (1.5 kilometres) outside Slough where he paid £1 per week to maintain them. By 1844, Tawell was having severe financial problems. He bought two bottles of Scheele's prussic acid , a treatment for varicose veins containing hydrogen cyanide , and on 1 January 1845 travelled to Salt Hill, where he poisoned Sarah while sharing a beer in her cottage. She was found later that evening. A man in distinctive Quaker dark clothing had been observed to leave Sarah's house shortly before she died. Following his trail,
216-543: A landscape, usually by bridging a river valley or other eroded opening in an otherwise flat area. Often such valleys had roads descending either side (with a small bridge over the river, where necessary) that become inadequate for the traffic load, necessitating a viaduct for "through" traffic. Such bridges also lend themselves for use by rail traffic, which requires straighter and flatter routes. Some viaducts have more than one deck, such that one deck has vehicular traffic and another deck carries rail traffic. One example of this
252-468: A lesser offence. The result was that his sentence was commuted to fourteen years' transportation to the penal colony of Sydney. After eventually obtaining his ticket of leave , Tawell prospered, opening the colony's first pharmacy and conducting numerous property and business ventures. His family rejoined him in Sydney in 1823 and Tawell set about rehabilitating his reputation, being influential in setting up
288-595: A repurposed rail viaduct provides a garden promenade on top and workspace for artisans below. The garden promenade is called the Coulée verte René-Dumont while the workspaces in the arches below are the Viaduc des Arts . The project was inaugurated in 1993. Manhattan's High Line , inaugurated in 2009, also uses an elevated train line as a linear urban park . In Indonesia viaducts are used for railways in Java and also for highways such as
324-469: A very short distance away to the east. The viaduct was the first major structural design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel , the first building contract to be let on the GWR project, and the first major engineering work to be completed. It was also the first railway viaduct to be built with hollow piers, a feature much appreciated by a colony of bats which has since taken up residence within. The Great Western Railway
360-435: Is 17 metres (56 ft) wide. The supporting piers are hollow and tapered, rising to projecting stone cornices that held up the arch centring during construction. When built, the viaduct was designed to carry two broad gauge tracks: the piers were 9.1 metres (30 ft) wide at ground level and 10 metres (33 ft) at deck level. The contractor was the partnership of Thomas Grissell and Samuel Morton Peto . The cost
396-617: Is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts . Like the Roman aqueducts , many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length. The longest viaduct in antiquity may have been the Pont Serme which crossed wide marshes in southern France. At its longest point, it measured 2,679 meters with a width of 22 meters. Viaducts are commonly used in many cities that are railroad hubs , such as Chicago, Birmingham, London and Manchester . These viaducts cross
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#1732852221737432-468: Is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It
468-631: Is best viewed from Brent Meadow on the south side, accessed from the Uxbridge Road, opposite Ealing Hospital . This is an area being maintained as a traditional hay meadow and is part of the Brent River Park. The river Brent has marked the boundary between Hanwell and Southall since before the Domesday Book . 51°30′39″N 0°20′39″W / 51.51083°N 0.34424°W / 51.51083; -0.34424 Viaduct A viaduct
504-500: Is built across land rather than water, the space below the arches may be used for businesses such as car parking, vehicle repairs, light industry, bars and nightclubs. In the United Kingdom, many railway lines in urban areas have been constructed on viaducts, and so the infrastructure owner Network Rail has an extensive property portfolio in arches under viaducts. In Berlin the space under the arches of elevated subway lines ( S-Bahn )
540-883: Is the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, Canada, that carries motor traffic on the top deck as Bloor Street , and metro as the Bloor-Danforth subway line on the lower deck, over the steep Don River valley . Others were built to span settled areas, crossing over roads beneath—the reason for many viaducts in London. Viaducts over water make use of islands or successive arches. They are often combined with other types of bridges or tunnels to cross navigable waters as viaduct sections, while less expensive to design and build than tunnels or bridges with larger spans, typically lack sufficient horizontal and vertical clearance for large ships. See
576-407: Is used for several different purposes, including small eateries or bars. Elevated expressways were built in major cities such as Boston ( Central Artery ), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seoul , Tokyo and Toronto ( Gardiner Expressway ). Some were demolished because they were unappealing and divided the city. In other cases, viaducts were demolished because they were structurally unsafe, such as
612-526: The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel . The Millau Viaduct is a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn near Millau in southern France. It opened in 2004 and is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 343 metres (1,125 ft). The viaduct Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge in China was the longest bridge in the world as of 2011 . Where a viaduct
648-629: The Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, which was damaged by an earthquake in 1989. However, in developing nations such as Thailand ( Bang Na Expressway , the world's longest road bridge ), India ( Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway ), China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nicaragua, elevated expressways have been built and more are under construction to improve traffic flow, particularly as a workaround of land shortage when built atop surface roads. Other uses have been found for some viaducts. In Paris, France,
684-610: The Jakarta Inner Ring Road . In January 2019, the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle was closed and replaced with a tunnel after several decades of use because it was seismically unsafe. John Tawell John Tawell (c. 1784–1845) was a British murderer and the first person to be arrested as the result of telecommunications technology. Transported to Australia in 1814 for the crime of forgery , Tawell obtained
720-422: The alphabet of the two-needle instrument , and the clerk at Slough therefore spelt the word "Quaker" with a "kwa". "Kwaker" was eventually understood, but only after several requests to repeat. When the train reached Paddington, the man (who was in fact Tawell) was followed from the platform by a sergeant of the railway police , William Williams, who had put on a long civilian overcoat. Williams followed him onto
756-517: The contract with the GWR and extended the telegraph to Slough , using a simpler two-needle instrument that could be supplied with just two wires suspended from porcelain insulators on poles. On 16 May 1843 the Paddington-to-Slough telegraph went public, becoming Britain's first public telegraph service. Despite being something of a publicity stunt for Cooke, it became very popular, and HM Government were frequently using it for communication with
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#1732852221737792-577: The first Quaker community in Australia and engaging in various philanthropic activities. In 1838 the Tawells returned finally to London. Mary, who had been suffering from tuberculosis , died by the end of the year. Tawell had employed a nurse, Sarah Lawrence, who later changed her name to Sarah Hart, to look after Mary. Despite having remarried, he began an affair with Hart. This secret relationship with Sarah Hart bore two children, and Tawell installed all three in
828-477: The jury that Sarah had poisoned herself. Tawell was nevertheless convicted at Aylesbury Courthouse , and was hanged in public on 28 March 1845 in the Market Square at Aylesbury with huge crowds watching. A written confession was handed to the gaoler, but never publicly released, leading to various unconfirmed rumours as to his guilt or innocence. The notoriety of the case brought the remarkable qualities of
864-498: The large railroad yards that are needed for freight trains there, and also cross the multi-track railroad lines that are needed for heavy rail traffic. These viaducts provide grade separation and keep highway and city street traffic from having to be continually interrupted by the train traffic. Likewise, some viaducts carry railroads over large valleys, or they carry railroads over cities with many cross-streets and avenues. Many viaducts over land connect points of similar height in
900-460: The newly installed electric telegraph to circulate a description of the suspect ahead of his arrival at his destination, where he was identified as he left the station. He was arrested the following day and later sentenced to hang. Tawell started out as a shop worker in London and for some years worked in a number of businesses owned by the Quakers , a strict religious society which he later joined. He
936-405: The police found that a person answering his description had caught the train at Slough, heading for Paddington Station in London. The police immediately used the newly installed telegraph to send a message to Paddington, giving the particulars, and desiring his capture. "He is in the garb of a kwaker," ran the message, "with a brown coat on, which reaches nearly to his feet." There was no "Q" in
972-453: The royal household at Windsor Castle nearby. In early 1845, John Tawell was apprehended following the use of a needle telegraph message from Slough to Paddington on 1 January 1845. This is thought to be the first use of the telegraph to catch a murderer. The message was: As the telecommunication traffic grew, the viaduct came to carry one of the trunk routes for the transatlantic cables, and more recently fibre-optic cables. The viaduct
1008-430: The standard used for all railways across the country. Therefore, in 1877 the viaduct was widened by the addition of an extra row of piers and arches on the north side. Then in 1892 the broad gauge track was converted to standard gauge, and this allowed enough width for four standard gauge tracks. On the central pier on the south side is a carving of the coat of arms of James Stuart Wortley Mackenzie, Lord Wharncliffe , who
1044-414: The telegraph to the public's attention. Its advantages as a rapid means of conveying intelligence and detecting criminals had been signally demonstrated, and it was soon adopted on a more extensive scale. Tawell's case was also significant as the first known homicide case where the criminal attempted to flee the scene of the crime by a railway train, and it was also one of the first cases in which prussic acid
1080-410: The viaduct thus carried the world's first commercial electrical telegraph, on 9 April 1839. At first, the seven-core cables were carried inside cast iron pipes, on short wooden spikes, a few feet from the side of the railway line. But from January 1843, the public were treated to the sight of telegraph wires against the sky line, across the top of the viaduct, for the first time. Cooke had renegotiated
1116-429: Was among the first structures to be listed , being defined as a Grade 1 listed building on 8 November 1949 (the legal framework for listing was introduced in 1947). Sir Nikolaus Pevsner , CBE , the historian of art and architecture, said of it, "Few viaducts have such architectural panache." It is one of the key locations in the bid for historic parts of the original GWR main line from Paddington to be recognised as
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1152-508: Was chairman of the parliamentary committee that steered the passage of the GWR Bill through Parliament. Brunel was quick to see the possible advantages of the early electric telegraph system for use in running the railway. In 1838 he persuaded Sir Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke to install their five-needle telegraph system between Paddington Station and West Drayton and to carry out experiments. It proved to be useful, so
1188-594: Was established in 1835 to build a line from London in the east to Bristol in the west. Its chief engineer was Isambard Kingdom Brunel , who personally supervised all major civil engineering works on the route. The River Brent was the first significant obstacle on the route and the Wharncliffe Viaduct was the first major engineering work. Constructed of engineering brick , the 270-metre-long (890 ft) viaduct has eight semi-elliptical arches, each spanning 70 feet (21 m) and rising 5.3 metres (17 ft). It
1224-594: Was eventually disowned by the Quakers as a result of his relationship with a non-Quaker woman, Mary Freeman, whom he ultimately married and with whom he had two children. In 1814 Tawell was charged with possessing forged banknotes from the Uxbridge Bank , potentially a capital offence. However, the Quaker-owned bank was opposed to the death penalty and, mindful of scandal, negotiated for Tawell to be allowed to plead guilty to
1260-399: Was revealed. His defence was handled by Sir Fitzroy Kelly , who tried to make a case that the prussic acid that killed Sarah Hart was ingested accidentally, from eating the pips of apples (a large barrel of apples was in the house). The implausibility of this argument led the distinguished barrister to be known as "Apple-pip" Kelly for the rest of his life. Tawell himself also tried to convince
1296-533: Was £40,000. The foundation works were carried out by William Brotherhood and his son Rowland . The young Charles Richardson also worked here under Brunel, as one of his first works for the Great Western. As travel by rail became more popular and rail traffic grew, pressure mounted to have an additional local line. Also, the Gauge Act of 1846 decreed that George Stephenson 's (narrower) standard gauge should be
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