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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 602913
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/602913
This 60 ft wide wrought-iron elliptical arch structure, with a central span of 1214 ft and an 108 ft span on each side crossing the river at the Saltmarket, was built in 1871–72. Each span is carried on eight riveted ribs.
Influenced by the successful foundations at the first Clyde Viaduct, its masonry piers and abutments were carried on cast-iron cylinders founded some 86 ft below high water level. The parapets are of ornamental cast-iron design. The cost was £62 328. The engineers were Bell & Miller and the contractor, Hanna, Donald & Wilson, Paisley.
This bridge replaced Robert Stevenson’s elegant five span masonry, low-rise segmental arches, Hutcheson Bridge built by John Steedman from 1831–34, described by Fenwick of the Royal Military Academy as one of the ‘best specimens’ of its type. But Daniel Miller, of Bell & Miller, with the support of Fowler, was keen to build a new bridge. Parliamentary evidence of 1865 indicates that they overstated the extent to which the foundations had collapsed from navigational deepening. David Stevenson, James Leslie, Sir James Falshaw and Thomas Page all indicated how the bridge could besaved at a fraction of the cost of its replacement, but to no avail.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
