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Field Visit
Date June 1988
Event ID 1082626
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082626
This bridge spans the mouth of the tidal Gearr Abhainn ('short river') at the head of Loch Shira, 2.3km NE of Inveraray. Some preliminary work was done at the site in1744, soon after the line of the military road from Dumbarton to Inveraray (No. 264) was surveyed, but detailed preparations began in 1747, when the bases of the abutment-piers were built. Since the river marked the boundary of the Inveraray Castle policies (No. 185) the 3rd Duke's architect Roger Morris produced the design, which was executed with the young John Adam as superintending architect, and a master-mason named Christie working under the supervision of Wiliam Caulfield, inspector of military roads. There were fierce complaints from the Duke of Cumberland in July 1749 about the cost and negligible military value of the bridge, but Caulfield was allowed to resume work in September 'as he has almost finished the bridge' and 'as a serviss to a great Man' (en.1*). Robert Mylne surveyed the bridge for damage after floods in 1772, and in 1776-7 he prepared a design to link it by screen-walls to new lodges, of which only that to the W was built (No. 195) (en.2). The bridge continued to carry the A83 trunk road until about 1980, when it was closed to vehicle traffic and replaced by a new bridge about l00m upstream.
A number of drawings of the bridge survive, including two dimensioned sketches and a page of cornice- and balustrade- details by Morris himself, and Mylne's survey of 1776-7. They vary considerably, especially in the height of the superstructure above the arch and in the steepness of parapets and roadway, but with one exception all show an arch of 60 feet (18.3m), and the bridge was always so described. One drawing, however, captioned 'as approved by his Grace the Duke of Argyll' and closely related to one of the Morris sketches, shows an arch of 19.6m as built, but differs from the completed structure in the height and details of the parapet and abutments. This may have been the 'exceedingly neat and well done' design received by William Adam from Morris in February 1748, when John Adam was authorised by the architect to 'fix the proportions’ (en.3).
The bridge is 28m long, with a roadway 5.1m wide, and is extended to an overall length of 66m by inclined approaches with converging revetment-walls. The segmental 19.6m arch has a height of about 8m above normal high-water level and5.7m above the arch-springing, and the divisions of its voussoirs are continued beyond the square hood-mould by radial courses of masonry, as shown on Morris's sketches and copied by John Adam in the Garden Bridge (No. 267). This masonry, and the copious other dressings, are of buff sandstone, with copings and finials of chlorite-schist. The bevelled rectangular abutment-piers have ashlar plinths and quoins and above broad plain bands they are surmounted by the parapets of rectangular refuges (en.4*). The parapets above the arch are carried on heavy rounded mouldings supported by ogival corbels, and comprise solid walls bearing large blank tablets on the outer faces, flanked by inclined balustrades divided by pillars in each section into groups of three, six and three sandstone balusters, with half-baluster responds of schist. The central walls have heavy cornices, each of which until recently carried at each end a ball-finial 0.84m in diameter, 'intersected' by a thin square horizontal slab. The solid abutment parapets have similar cornices above blank tablets, and retain their single finials. There are numerous graffiti on the parapet-copings, including yachts of 19th century character, and a group of masons' marks on the upper pillar of the SE balustrade.
The revetment-walls of the inclined approaches are rubble built, with plain slab copings of schist, and end in ashlar piers. Both sides have been heightened, by as much as 1.6mat the outer ends, and the steeper original line corresponds with that of early drawings, including Mylne's elevation of 1776-7. On the N side, the lower part of the parapet of the W approach was heightened by Mylne to match the adjacent screen-wall (see No. 195).
RCAHMS 1992, visited June 1988
