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Field Visit
Date 9 May 1928
Event ID 1099084
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099084
Guard Bridge.
This fine mediaeval bridge crosses the River Eden 3 ½ miles west of St. Andrews. There are six arches, all unribbed and chamfered at the arris, the most easterly arch being smaller and lower than the others. The width of the soffits is 131 feet, and the roadway is 12 ½ feet wide. There are three refuges on each side, but these may be relatively modern, since the parapets have been rebuilt. Centred on the northern or down-water side of the bridge is a panel bearing a shield flanked by the initials I.B. and with an archiepiscopal staff behind. It bears: Quarterly, 1st and 4th, a fess between three mascles; 2nd and 3rd, on a chevron an otter's head erased, all for James Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews (1522-39). These arms appear to be represented also on a much decayed panel on the southern or upwater side of the bridge, and show that this bridge was repaired at the instance of the Archbishop in the early 16th century.
HISTORICAL NOTE. "Guard" is a corruption of the real name of the bridge, which, as "Legare (= lie gare)-brig," was built "at great expense" by Bishop Wardlaw of St. Andrews (1404-40), founder of the University (1). As "the Gair Bridge" it was among those to be repaired in 1685 from the revenues of "vacant stipends" (2). In Pennant's Tour in Scotland (1772) it is the "Gair-bridge" (3). As an explanation of the name the Rev. Mr. Lyon suggested Gare, taking it to be a Gaelic word signifying "a fishing station” (4). But this word is properly Yare and is English. More probably the word in question is the fairly common Gare or Gaire, in its meaning of a triangular piece of ground, the River Eden here following a Z-shaped course.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 9 May 1928.
(1) Scotichr., VI, xlvii. (2) Acts Parl. Scot., viii, p. 474. (3) Vol. iii, p. 188. (4) History of St. Andrews, i, p. 212.
