Digswell Viaduct

A prominent local landmark, it is located between Welwyn Garden City and Digswell.

[3] It is built of red brick fired from clay quarried on site during construction, and took two years to build, including the construction of embankments at both ends which required the movement of around one million tons of earth by human and horse power.

It has been claimed that it was officially opened by Queen Victoria on 6 August 1850, but she was reportedly so frightened of its height that she refused to travel across it and left the train, using a horse-drawn carriage to travel the length of the bridge on the ground.

However, her published diaries for that day show that she was staying at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight at the time.

[6] A three-year project in the mid 1930s encased the viaduct's deteriorating brickwork in the blue engineering brick seen today.