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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 578099
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/578099
This massive viaduct strides across the Big Water of Fleet. It was built in 1861 as part of the Portpatrick Railway. The engineers were B. & E. Blyth, Edinburgh.
The bridge, a masonry structure of 20 segmental arches, featured in the 1935 film version of John Buchan’s novel The 39 Steps. It developed cracks, presumably because of ground settlement, which necessitated the piers being given an unsightly casing of brickwork up to the springing level of the arches in 1924. The arch spandrel walls were themselves strengthened with tie rods and rails. The line closed in 1968 and the viaduct is now disused and owned by Sustrans, the Cycle Network Project.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
