View looking along deck of bridge from north east

Description View looking along deck of bridge from north east

Date 4/6/2001

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number E 15550 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 768775

Scope and Content Bridge of Dee, Invercauld, Aberdeenshire, from the north-east (Old Invercauld Bridge) This hump-backed, rubble-built bridge which spans the River Dee at a bend some distance upstream from Balmoral, carried the old Ballater to Braemar road across the river at Invercauld. It crosses the river in six arches, each being a different size, and those at each end being built over completely dry land. The parapet, 43cm wide, is highest at the hump, and topped with flat stones of different sizes. From the top of the bridge the new Invercauld bridge is visible upstream. In 1855 the new Balmoral Castle on the Balmoral estate was almost completed, and Prince Albert turned his attention on laying out the grounds. However, there was a question of privacy as the public road from Ballater to Braemar followed the south bank of the River Dee through the Balmoral estate. This road ran from the east lodge of the castle and continued through the estate to the Bridge of Dee at Invercauld. Up to this point the south bank road had only been used by local people, but now that Balmoral was a royal residence, royal privacy had to be ensured, and this stretch of the south bank road was closed by the Ballater Turnpike Road Act of 1855. Prince Albert financed the building of new bridges at the eastern and western ends of the estate, so that traffic on the south bank road from Ballater by-passed the estate by continuing along the north bank of the river before crossing back to the south bank by a new bridge at Invercauld. Bridge of Dee at Invercauld was designed in 1753 by the engineer, Major Edward Caulfield, as a military bridge to link Corgarff in the north with Inverness, and Blairgowrie in the south. It was superseded in 1859 by a new Invercauld Bridge, built at the expense of Prince Albert in order to secure his privacy on the Balmoral estate, which he and Queen Victoria purchased in 1852. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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