Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606327
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606327
A masonry bridge dating from about 1460 with an arch of 72 ft span, large for a medieval bridge, and a rise of 26 ft.Large areas of the stonework have been replaced over the years and indifferently match the original in colour, dressing and courses. The bridge was refurbished in 1978. An unusual feature noticed by Inglis was the old parapet copestones shaped like a handrail. The bridge is now pedestrianised and a major tourist attraction.
The line of the cobbled roadway is cranked in plan, due to an ancient belief that this irregular form deterred witches from crossing. This bridge also was immortalised by Alloway born Burns in his poem Tam O’ Shanter. Burns tells of Tam, riding home alone on Meg, his faithful mare, on a wild night after a merry evening with his friends in an Ayr hostelry, being pursued by fiends and witches from the haunted Auld Alloway Kirk and believing, as decreed by ancient superstition, that if he crossed flowing water they could not follow.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
