Archaeology Notes

Event ID 666821

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/666821

NJ35NW 24.00 34001 59453

Fochabers Bridge [NAT]

OS (GIS) AIB, April 2006.

NJ35NW 24.01 NJ 33984 59499 Tollhouse

Location formerly entered as NJ 33998 59437.

For successor and present bridge (adjacent to NE), see NJ35NW 244.

(Location cited as NJ 340 594). Old Spey Bridge, Fochabers, completed 1806, engineer Thomas Telford, rebuilt 1852 after the floods of 1829. A three-span bridge with two masonry arches and one three-rib, cast-iron arch (1852), all segmental. The masonry spans have dressed-stone arch rings, rubble spandrels with oculi, and bracketted ironm footpaths.

J R Hume 1977.

Spey Bridge, opened 1804. Until this bridge was built, the Spey, with its notorious and dangerous flash floods, could only be crossed by the ferry of Boat of Bog. Built by George Burn, perhaps to a design by Thomas Telford, in 1801-4, the bridge was an elegant three-arch bridge, an oculus above each quarter. The Muckle Spate washed away the two western arches, which were replaced by a single timber arch, designed by Archibald Simpson, in turn replaced in 1852 by a cast-iron version, a wooden model of which is in Fochabers Folk Museum.

C McKean 1987.

This bridge carries the former line of the A96 (T) public road over the River Spey on the western outskirts of Fochabers (NJ35NW 23). The river here forms the boundary between the parishes of Bellie (to the E) and Speymouth (to the W).

The location assigned to this record defines the apparent midpoint of the structure. The available map evidence indicates that it extends from NJ c. 33975 59478 to NJ c. 34082 59379.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 7 April 2006.