Ribblehead Viaduct: The most famous man-made structure in the Yorkshire Dales

On some days you can find more than 100 photographers lined up along a dirt track leading from Ribblehead, like the paparazzi waiting for celebrities to parade a red carpet, their cameras focused on the spectacular piece of Victorian masonry and ready to capture one of the special steam train charters which run along this most iconic part of the Settle-Carlisle railway line.

When the line was planned in the 1860s there was a single purpose: to provide an alternative route to Scotland during a bitter dispute between two railway companies.

And so to outflank its rivals, the London & North Western Railway, the Midland Railway forced a line across some of the most hostile terrain in England, requiring 14 tunnels and 22 dramatic viaducts.

Of these, the one which marches over Ribblehead was the most problematic to build.

So boggy was the terrain that thousands of sheep fleeces were laid down underneath the foundations to provide extra stability.

When the Settle-Carlisle was almost closed by British Rail in the 1980s, the viaduct’s poor condition was given as the primary reason.

A claim that it would fall down within three years unless £12m was spent on repairs, making the line uneconomic, was challenged by lovers of the Settle-Carlisle and eventually the company said it would cost half that amount.

Later on it was revealed the estimate was actually £2.5m - a quarter of the original figure.

After fighting the closure became a cause célèbre, with a Bishop of Wakefield comparing Ribblehead Viaduct with York Minster, the famous structure was repaired and the line saved.