Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 589673
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/589673
Victoria Bridge, Haddington over the Tyne, just downstream of the narrow Nungate Bridge and upstream of the pre-1856 timber bridge to the corn mill, had been considered by the Town Council from 1849. Various plans and estimates were prepared including, in the 1880s, a scheme to use girders salvaged from the Tay Railway Bridge. Eventually a design was commissioned from civil engineers Belfrage & Carfrae, Edinburgh, and the present elegant twin steel arch bridge was built from 1898 to 1900. The resident engineer was William Jackson. Its 3 ft deep arched beams with ornamental facades have spans of 60 ft and a rise of only 6 ft. The steelwork and erection contractor was Somervail & Co. of Dalmuir and the bridge cost about£9000. It was named after Queen Victoria whose diamond jubilee had taken place in 1897. The bridge, tastefully refurbished by Lothian Regional Council in 1975 at a cost of about £20 000, is an excellent early example of a provincial steel arch bridge in Scotland, on a smaller scale but more slender than North Bridge, Edinburgh.
R Paxton and S Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
