Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 605665
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/605665
In 1820 a wealthy Glasgow merchant, Colin Campbell, bought what he named the Linn Estate, after a waterfall
there and built a mansion as a summer residence. The estate eventually became the Linn Park and the house is now a visitor centre.
The waterfall occurs where the White Cart flows over a dolerite sill with a drop of 12 ft. About 100 yards upstream the river is bridged by an elegant cast-iron footbridge of some 43 ft span with sandstone masonry abutments.
The arch is semi-elliptical in shape and formed of four ribs spaced 4 ft apart and braced at the third points by
rectangular frames held by bolts with square nuts. No bolts show on the elevations of the ribs, which are
pierced by ornamental tracery in the spandrels. The bridge is 12 ft wide between iron parapets which may
well be original. The designer and ironfounder are unknown but the bridge probably dates from the 1820s.
In the late 1940s a haunching of concrete was placed around the seatings of the arch ribs to provide protection.
The bridge is now restricted to pedestrian use.
R Paxton and S Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
