An elegant 37-arch railway viaduct of 1841 crossing the Ouse valley near Balcombe, famous for the tunnel effect you see looking through its piers
The Ouse Valley Viaduct takes the London to Brighton railway across the shallow valley of the river on 37 tall brick arches, and it has done so since 1841. What makes people stop and photograph it is the piers: each one is pierced with a large oval opening, so when you stand at one end and look along underneath, the openings line up into a repeating tunnel that seems to go on forever. The brickwork is finished off with pale stone balustrades and little pavilions at each end, which is a lot of care for a railway bridge. Trains still run over the top, so you view it from the public footpaths in the valley rather than getting onto it. It stands in the High Weald a little south of Balcombe, and the High Weald Landscape Trail passes close to the east.
