Bennerley Viaduct

This is a disused railway viaduct spanning the Erewash Valley between Awsworth in Nottinghamshire and Ilkeston in Derbyshire, photographed today from the towpath of the Nottingham Canal near Awsworth.

This wrought iron lattice work viaduct is 1452 feet long with the rails 60 feet 10 inches above the Erewash River. Most railway viaducts at the time were brick built but the foundations of this one were subject to a great deal of coal mining subsidence therefore, the lighter wrought iron design was chosen.

The viaduct was built between May 1876 and November 1877 and forms part of the Great Northern Railway Derbyshire Extension which was built in part to exploit the coalfields in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

The contract was given by the Great Northern Railway (GNR) to Benton & Woodiwiss with the line laid out by, and the viaduct designed by Richard Johnson (Chief Civil Engineer of the GNR); Samuel Abbott was the resident engineer.

The viaduct consists of 16 lattice work deck spans, each 76 feet 7 inches long supported on wrought iron columns with stone capped blue brick foundations. There were three additional iron skew spans at the Ilkeston end of the viaduct which carried the railway line over the Erewash Canal and the Midland Railway's Erewash Valley Line. A skew span crosses its abutments and or piers at an angle other than a right angle.
At the Awsworth end of the viaduct there was a section of embankment (including bridges of more conventional brick construction) which has been demolished.
The Nottingham Canal passed under this section.

The viaduct was built for the railway line between Awsworth Junction and Derby on the Derbyshire and Staffordshire Line and opened in January 1878.

This railway line was the target for a Zeppelin bombing raid in World War One! 
On 31 January 1916, nine Zeppelin airships of the German Airship Naval Division conducted a bombing raid over the British Midlands known as the Great Midlands Raid.
One of these airships, the L.20 (LZ 59) based at Tønder in Denmark and commanded by KapitanLeutnant Stabbert conducted a bombing raid in the area around the Bennerley viaduct. Seven high explosive bombs were dropped in the vicinity, one of which dropped just to the north of the viaduct on the Midland Railway line at Bennerley Junction, which served Bennerley Ironworks. Damage was caused to the Midland line but the viaduct emerged unscathed. Later during the same raid the L.20 dropped fifteen bombs onto the nearby Stanton Ironworks one of which damaged a railway bridge crossing the Nutbrook Canal.

On 4 May 1916 after a second air raid over England the L.20 ran out of fuel and crashlanded near Stavanger in Norway.