Britain’s longest railway bridge, which is near Watford, has won in the best engineering category at this year’s Royal Fine Art Commission Trust’s Building Beauty Awards.

Completed just two months ago, HS2's 3.4km Colne Valley viaduct will transport 200mph trains over the area's lakes and grassland in what the competition’s judges called “a curving form”.

First launched in 2022, the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust’s Building Beauty Awards honour the “best of beautiful new architecture”.

(Image: HS2) The HS2 bridge – south-west of Watford – scooped this year’s engineering prize which has previously been won by the Woolbeding Glasshouse in Sussex and the Tintagel Castle footbridge in Cornwall.

At the ceremony members of the HS2 delivery team, civil engineer contractor Align, and viaduct architects Grimshaw were all on hand to accept the honour from HRH the Duke of Gloucester.

HS2 civil engineering project director, David Emms, said he was delighted at such “prestigious recognition” and Loïc Menard, the Align Project director, added that the bridge had been a “huge technical challenge” and that he had no doubt it “will be the most iconic feature of HS2”.

The Colne Valley viaductThe Colne Valley viaduct (Image: HS2) In September 2024 the last of 1,000 giant concrete pre-cast segments used to build the structure’s deck was fitted into place.

The project will next focus on installing the railway tracks with it predicted to become operational between 2029 and 2033.

It has become the longest railway bridge in the country, surpassing the 3.3-kilometre Tay Bridge linking Fife and Dundee in Scotland.

(Image: HS2) Summing up the project’s achievement, the judges said: "The result is a breathtaking composition, its drama enhanced by its curving form as it crosses the lakes.”

They added: “There is nothing gratuitous or pedestrian here, no applied ornament. The ornament is the structure itself.”