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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders

Date 2007

Event ID 578455

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/578455

This reservoir is formed by an earth dam 1050 ft long and of maximum height 80 ft impounding up to 2800 million gallons of water. The top water level is 950 ft above Ordnance Datum and the dam side slopes are 1 in 4

upstream and 1 in 3 downstream. Water is conveyed 35 miles to Alnwickhill, Edinburgh by the Talla Aqueduct.

A 10 mile long standard gauge temporary railway was constructed from the Caledonian Railway at Broughton

for the conveyance of materials. Much of the formation level of this railway and its iron truss bridges of 100 ft

span over the Tweed, which also carried the aqueduct, and of 60 ft span over the Biggar Water, can still be seen. The line had a ruling gradient of 1 in 50.

The engineers were J. & A. Leslie & Reid of Edinburgh. Construction was let in about 50 separate contracts, but the greater part of the works were carried out by James Young & Sons and John Best, both of Edinburgh, and Robert McAlpine & Sons of Glasgow. The total cost from 1895 to completion in 1905 was £1.25m. In the 1950s and 1960s the tributaries Menzion and Fruid were developed to augment the supply.

R Paxton and J Shipway 2007

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.

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