Larpool Viaduct

When I lived in Whitby, I used to walk over this thing a few times a week without giving it much thought. Occasionally, I looked down over the side at the River Esk and the mix of new houses, rotting boats and secret gardens that line its banks, usually while I waited for the dog to finish sniffing some smelly corner of the viaduct. I walked under it too, but I did it so many times I rarely looked up at it. But every now and again, I saw it for what it was—bloody immense. Thirteen arches, thirty-seven metres high, 279 metres long. It took two years to build, from October 1882 to October 1884. No iron was used in the construction as it's pretty close to the sea. So it's just brick and cement. Thousands and thousands of red bricks stacked up on top of one another. Two men fell from it during construction. Somehow they survived. The engineer was a Scot (of course) called John Waddell, who also designed the Putney Bridge. Thirteen years after it was built, Bram Stoker mentioned it in his novel Dracula: 'The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is.'