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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders

Date 2007

Event ID 590383

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/590383

Leamington Lift Bridge is the only surviving example of an electrical lifting bridge on the Union Canal. It was designed by Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth of Newcastle for the canal owners, the North British Railway, and installed in ca. 1906, not at this site but at Fountainbridge as a replacement for a lift bridge of 1869 [see RCAHMS NT27SW 3133]. This was the next road crossing to the north, just before the terminal basins of Port Hamilton and Port Hopetoun. Because of the decline in canal traffic, these basins were closed and filled in by 1922 and, as the canal then ended south of Fountainbridge, the bridge was dismantled in November 1922 and later re-erected at its present site. Twin portals of riveted steel box sections support the lifting mechanism and deck during operation, house the motors and keep the deck in position as it is raised and lowered. The navigational headroom is 9 ft. The bridge, after finally ceasing to operate in the 1960s, was refurbished as part of the Millennium Link Project and has been in regular use since its re-opening on 22 March 2005. It is the first bridge west of the new terminal facility at Lochrin Basin.

R Paxton and S Shipway 2007

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

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