Publication Account

Date 1977

Event ID 1017867

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017867

Edgar was the first writer to assign the building of a bridge across the Nith to Dervorgilla de Balliol whom he identifies incorrectly as 'Dornagildfl.i a spouse to John Balliol' (Reid, 1915, 53). That tradition has stuck and it is perhaps not unreasonable to suspect that .she might have funded such a project. On 16th January 1425 /6 the Countess of Galloway granted a charter to the Dumfries Greyfriars which enabled them to collect a toll levied at the bridge (Reid, 1915, !'50). Even more significant is the wording of a 1431/2 papal relaxation which speaks of 'the bridge which has recently begun', at Dumfries over the River Nith (Shirley, 1915, 27). So a stone bridge was wilt at Dumfries at least by the first half of the fifteenth century, a structure which was swept away by a flood in 1621. The rebuilt seventeenth-century bridge originally had nine arches, three of which were later removed. It is in good repair and is still in daily use for pedestrian traffic. The building of that bridge had provided not only greater access to Dumfries markets, but had led to the creation of a suburban area - Newtown - under the 'west barnraws'. A second bridge was constructed just upriver from the original in the 1790s to aid the increased flow of traffic. Its construction similarly had a revolutionary effect on the character of the northern end of Dumfries.

Information from ‘Historic Dumfries: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1977).