Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 578232
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/578232
A substantial three-span masonry arch bridge constructed over the Nith about seven miles north-west of Dumfries in 1782. The spans are each 56 ft and the width between parapets is 25 ft 8 in. The bridge carried the A76 road until it was bypassed in 1979.
The bridge, now used as a cycle path, is notable as a design of David Henderson, Edinburgh architect and
bridge builder. Alexander Stevens had, in 1779, advised taking down and replacing the bridge with two arches of 80 ft span. Henderson was commissioned in ca.1780 to report on the then unfinished bridge with a fractured
pier begun by William Morton of Old Cumnock in 1773.
Morton’s work was demolished and a well-known local bridge builder, William Stewart, contracted for the bridge to Henderson’s design which was completed in November 1782 at a cost of £1486.
Henderson produced ‘a design of original architecture, three equal segmental arches framed over the cutwaters with pairs of thick ashlar pilasters which at parapet level carry a cornice running round the base of a refuge which is covered by a semi-dome giving shelter from rain for travellers on foot’. (Ruddock).
It is said that the father of Thomas Carlisle worked on the bridge’s construction as a stonemason.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
