Even if you’re from the North East of England you’d be forgiven if you’re not familiar with a river in Northumberland called Knar Burn. With whole areas being named after infamous rivers which were once the very lifeblood of the region such as Wearside, Teesside and Tyneside, “Knar Burnside” just sounds like a Geordie disagreeing with a Detective Inspector from The Bill – which whilst admittedly being a very niche joke, also makes for a unique start to a topographical survey case study does it not?
Knar Burn is in Northumberland and is an 8.2km tributary of the Tyne river. But most locals still only know its name due to it being traversed in 1852 on the completion of a rail viaduct which has since been known simply as the Knar Burn Viaduct. And it was not only significant for the rail companies who once used it – but as it has Grade II listed status it remains an important part of the local landscape, despite no longer hosting any trains.
The Gridmark Survey team was tasked with carrying out a topographical survey in order to produce cross sections, bridge elevations and an assortment of bridge measurements. This survey data would be vital to feed into a project to address all major defects such as missing stonework in the pier structures and within the four arches of the viaduct.
The majority of locations at relatively high altitudes tend to be remote and at 1200 ft high in the North Pennines of Northumberland this project was no different. This presented a challenge simply arriving on site as we needed an expert driver to navigate our van along an old, disused railtrack – but we couldn’t find anyone so Chris Best drove instead 😉
Despite the remote nature of the viaduct we regularly became a local curiosity with hikers and cyclists as we soon discovered it must be a popular route for both. I think most are disappointed that the strangers in the undergrowth don’t answer their “What are you up to mate?” question with something that would fit well in an episode of CSI Northumberland but we’re all still enthused by all of our survey work nonetheless.Another hurdle for us was the Northumberland weather. With the number of survey projects we undertake in the North East and Cumbria we’re very used to changeable and inclement weather but the rain on two of the days was enough to have Noah worried but this meant that we had to work even smarter to plan in the periods we needed to access the river.
With the only use of the area being the aforementioned hikers and cyclists, any detour from the “main” paths meant significant undergrowth. This, coupled with the tree canopy meant that whilst we could stay out of the torrential downpours it wasn’t conducive to gaining the required GPS and mobile signals. This meant we spent longer than usual on site control.
We were lucky enough to share some of our survey time with four red squirrels across the site – or it was possibly the same squirrel who covered a heck of a lot of ground. Still a treat though as we understand that there aren’t many places to see this threatened indigenous creature.
If you have topographic survey requirements and believe that Gridmark Survey might be able to help you with your project please get in touch with one of our friendly team and we can discuss your specific needs.
