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Lincoln’s Inn Bridge was built in the 17th century

Go along the road a short distance to the right, crossing to a track signed through a gate to Low Branthwaite. Before long the imposing Lune Viaduct at Waterside comes into view, but before it is Crosdale Beck, which, after rain, may involve a paddle.

THE LUNE VIADUCT

Part of the same Ingleton branch line encountered earlier, the Lune Viaduct has three towering stone arches either side of a massive, cast-iron central span. The engineer was Joseph Locke, who started out as an apprentice under George Stephenson on the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester railways. Early railways avoided hills and followed the snaking canals, but Locke gained a reputation for his bold use of gradients to achieve shorter routes. This dramatically reduced both construction cost and time, and was matched by increasingly powerful locomotives. The Ingleton project was one of the last upon which he worked, for Locke died suddenly at the age of 55 from appendicitis, in 1860, just a year before the line opened.