Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 578258
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/578258
This viaduct, originally carrying the Portpatrick Railway over Loch Ken, one of the earliest surviving examples of its type, is now in private ownership connecting two farms. It has three then state-of-the-art wrought iron bowstring lattice girder spans, each of 138 ft and 1712 ft maximum height and is built on a curve of 880 yd radius. The bowstring rather than a parallel top and bottom member girder was chosen, in the view of its engineer, because of the efficiency of its uniform cross-section for top and bottom members, pairs of channels 8 in. by 4 in. by4 in. by 12 in., and its simplicity of construction. The masonry of the piers rests on cast-iron tubes up to 42 ft deep which were sunk to their final depth by a novel use of screw-piles. The viaduct was designed by B. & E. Blyth, consulting engineers and built by Thomas Nelson & Co., Carlisle in 1859–60 at a cost of about £13 000.
A fascinating example of late-Victorian sanitary engineering exists nearby in Parton opposite the village hall. It is an octagonal eight-privy building of 1901 in red brick with a Cumberland slate roof which served eight cottages for many years. It was known as the ‘Houses of Parliament’ and is now conserved with one privy available for inspection only.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
