Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017682
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017682
This suspension footbridge was built in 1837 by Dr George Morison, minister of Banchory-Devenick parish, for those who lived in the detached portion of the parish N of the River Dee and who attended the church and school on the S bank of the river. Although the N portion of the parish was transferred to Peterculter in 1891, the bridge was reconstructed by public subscription after flood damage in October 1920. However, the S approaches have since been destroyed, and for some years the bridge has Iain disused and under threat of demolition.
The bridge was designed by John Smith, architect (1781-1852), who had worked with Samuel Brown, the pioneer of British suspension bridges, on the Wellington Bridge, Aberdeen, in 1829-31. The Cults bridge followed the Brown suspension system in having a pair of single chains made up of wrought-iron rods and hangers joined together by iron link-pins and flat links . The main rods are 1 3/4 in (44.5mm) in diameter and range in length between 6 ft 4in (1.93m) and 6ft 8in (2.03m). Thirty-five hanger-rods and their corresponding number of cast-iron cross-beams carry the slatted wooden deck. It has a timber balustrade (dismantled, together with the decking, in 1984), and is reinforced underneath by a system of diagonally set wooden races. The pylons are in the form of hollow cast-iron columns and entablatures of Greek Doric Order. They are set on masonry piers which, like the anchor-block abutments, are of coursed granite and have a battered profile with a cordon-moulding at the head. The clear span between the pylons is 186 ft (56.69m) and the original overall length 316ft 11 in (96.60m), subsequently extended by the construction of another pier 23 ft 6 in (7.16m) to the S.
Information from ‘Monuments of Industry: An Illustrated Historical Record’, (1986).
