Dandrymire Viaduct

Dandrymire Viaduct is a sandstone railway bridge at Garsdale featuring twelve curved stone arches spanning the moorland. The structure rises above the ground and forms a key element of the Settle-Carlisle rail line through the Yorkshire Dales.

Builders first attempted to construct an embankment from earth in 1869, but the boggy ground consumed vast quantities of fill material. They switched to building a viaduct instead, which was completed between 1873 and 1875 to overcome the unstable terrain.

This railway line is part of the Settle-Carlisle route, a key passage through the northern dales that connected remote communities. Locals and travelers have long seen it as a symbol of Victorian ambition to reach the distant regions of Yorkshire.

The viaduct sits northeast of Garsdale Station and is best viewed from nearby walking paths across the moorland. Visit during clearer weather to appreciate the full scale of the structure and the surrounding landscape without mist or rain obscuring the views.

During construction, roughly 19,000 cubic meters of earth disappeared into the bog before engineers abandoned the embankment approach entirely. This failure led to an ingenious solution that became a landmark of Victorian problem-solving in difficult terrain.