Midst the beauty and the splendour...

After yesterday's postings from an estuary, this picture is from a good way upstream!

The Leaderfoot viaduct is one of the most striking remains of the great age of railway building that can be found in the Borders.  It carried the Berwickshire Railway over the Tweed. The railway was built to connect the East Coast main line with the Waverley line.

Leaderfoot is one of the historic crossing points for the Tweed: this is now one of three bridges within a short distance - the other two are road bridges, and the area has been called "Tripontium" (an allusion to Trimontium, the Roman fort about half a mile away, named in its turn for the Eildons.)
In total there are 19 arches, and the tallest is 37 metres above the river.
The Berwickshire line had its own peculiarities.  An artificial mound had to be built to hide the railway from Drygrange House, and a station was built specifically to serve Marchmont House. The owners of these two estates were of course directors!
Like many other railways, the Berwickshire line was never very profitable (depite the price of tickets - in 1880 a first class ticket from Duns to Edinburgh would have set you back half a guinea!), but it proved useful in the Second World War - a special extension was built to serve RAF Charterhall.
Unfortunately the flooding of August 1948 (yes, there were bad summers even then!) washed away the trackbed between Duns and Greenlaw, and the line was never reinstated for passenger traffic.  Goods traffic continued into the 1960's, but like many rural lines it fell victim to the Beeching axe.  Fortunately the viaduct was preserved, and was restored in the 1990's.
I particularly like the way the arches frame the two trees in the field sloping down to the river.