Holborn Viaduct

Holborn Viaduct I crossed this summer. It was built 1863-1869 to cross the Fleet Valley and improve access to the City at a time when London was particularly cramped. Unlike a contemporary viaduct which would be characterised by plain steel and grey concrete, Holborn’s was constructed at a time when public works were meant to be beautiful and stately.

Four bronze ladies representing agriculture, commerce, art and science grace the parapet, as do lions and dragons. Truly, a piece of engineering that is as much a piece of fine art.

This can be said of our world in general: cleverly built and skilfully engineered, yet beautifully coloured, patterned and fashioned. Whereas human engineers are seldom artists, while artists seldom triumph in the field of mathematics, our great Creator God is both, simultaneously. The divine Artist is a vastly able sculptor, painter and poet, whilst also the top geometrician, technologist and arithmetician. Our earth, though terribly scarred and corrupted by sin, is still a fantastic signpost to its Maker.