Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders

Date 2007

Event ID 589751

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/589751

A cast-iron skew bridge which carried the railway over the Braid Burn near Duddingston. It has a span of 1712 ft and was made, erected and painted in March 1831 by the Shotts Iron Company for the sum of £133.50. The bridge originally extended over the double track width of the railway. The cast-iron beams are in two forms, one L-shaped in cross-section and the others of an inverted T-shape resting on cast-iron, ridged, bank seat plates. These beams are of great interest as they are among the earliest surviving examples of their type and they carried railway goods traffic until 1968 when the line was closed. The bridge is now conserved and interpreted by the City of Edinburgh Council as part of a cycle path.

In August 2001 the beams were raised to accommodate a greater water depth in the burn. The project was awarded a special commendation by the Institution of Civil Engineers Panel for Historical Engineering Works in recognition of the exceptional care taken during the work in preserving ‘a prime example of one of the world’s earliest surviving cast-iron bridges on a public railway’.

R Paxton and J Shipway 2007

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

People and Organisations

References