Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606353
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606353
Arguably Britain’s most outstanding masonry arch viaduct, which comprises a main span of 181 ft span towering 164 ft above the Ayr flanked on each side by three 50 ft span arches. It was built from 1846–48 on the Cumnock Branch of the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock & Ayr Railway. All the arches are semicircular. The restrained ornamentation includes raised panels in the spandrels.
Although the span of Grosvenor Bridge at Chester was 19 ft longer, its height was only just over one-third that of Ballochmyle. The masterpiece of centring required to build the arch at this height was fortunately recorded for posterity by D. O. Hill [using photograhy] and [James] Newlands (J Newlands, 1865, Plate LV). The masonry is mainly of red sandstone quarried locally although the arch-ring was constructed of harder freestone quarried near Dundee. The foundation stone was laid on 5 September 1846.
The viaduct was designed by the company’s engineer, John Miller, who was second to none as a designer of
large masonry railway viaducts. The resident engineer was William McCandlish and the contractor, Ross &
Mitchell. The viaduct’s grace and excellence serve as a fitting memorial to their achievement.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
