Geograph - photograph every grid square

The Forest of Dean Cetntral Railway's precarious finances were not helped by the line requiring some fairly heavy civil engineering, including a number of deep cuttings and this eight-arch viaduct carrying the line across Clark's Lane, New Road and the Blackpool Brook in Blakeney. The stone arches of the viaduct survive to this day, but the two steel girder sections over New Road and Blackpool Brook were removed in 1959. The section of line over the viaduct had not been in regular use since 1921, when a miners' strike forced the closure of Howbeach Colliery (the last remaining source of traffic for the line) and it was officially closed in 1932 with the track being lifted in 1940.