Balcombe Viaduct

Balcombe Viaduct across the River Ouse is seemingly hidden in the Sussex countryside just north of Haywards Heath is used by thousands of people everyday, forming as it does part of the main London to Brighton railway line. Designed and built in 1842 by John Urpeth Restrick and David Mocatta this bridge combines the bold brashness of Victorian architecture with a surprising degree of elegance. The towering arches with their unusual top and bottom arches are more reminiscent of a cathedral or perhaps more accurately the old Moorish mosque in Cordoba in Southern Spain. For the photographer it is a fabulous opportunity with its sense of perspective and its symmetry combined with the challenge of constantly changing light and shade, as well as the problem of getting sufficient depth of field; the viaduct represents perhaps the ultimate challenge in hyperfocal focusing but the final images (see
) were, I hope you will agree worth the effort and the Viaduct itself is even more worth the visit!