Building record 1341900000 - Misbourne Viaduct

Misbourne Viaduct built between 1902 and 1906 as part of the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway route between Northolt and Bicester (Aynho). A 5-arch bridge of blue Staffordshire engineering bricks with semi-elliptical arches, projecting stringcourse of bullnosed brick, projecting corbelled refuges and solid piers with square corners, stepped brick imposts and no plinths, designed in the Great Western Railway house style, probably by GWR's civil engineering department under James Inglis (GWR Chief Civil Engineer until 1903) and built by Pauling & Co. of Westminster. Span of arches is 15.2m (or 15.5m) and max height of arches is 13.5m. The viaduct was originally built to cross the River Misbourne; in the early 1980s the M25 motorway was constructed on an embankment with carriageways beneath two of the viaduct's arches, the Misbourne was culverted underneath a third arch and farm tracks use the arches at each end of the viaduct. See report for further detail (B1).
Level 1 building recording carried out by Oxford Archaeology in August 2009 to record condition prior to changes associated with the widening of the M25 (B2).