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Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606397
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606397
Taymouth Castle dates from 1801–42 and was the home of the Marquis of Breadalbane, where Queen Victoria was received with much splendour in 1842. By this time the present cast-iron bridge over the Tay, supported from the stone piers of a ‘Chinese’ style hump-backed timber bridge of the third quarter of the 18th century, almost certainly existed as an enhancement to the castle grounds, which now form part of a golf course.
It is an elegant 9 ft wide bridge of three arches in the Tudor–Gothic style carrying a timber deck. The arches
span 45 ft between the earlier masonry piers 9 ft wide and have a rise of about 6 ft. They are pointed at the crown and sharply curved at the haunches, the section between these points being very nearly straight.
The cast-iron ribs have flat plate cross-sections and a minimum of diagonal angle-bracing near the haunches.
The spandrels are filled with slender cast-iron ornamental panels, some cracked. The parapet railings, about 4 ft high, are of similar design. This design, seen also in thewindows and masonry of the nearby castle, suggests that the designer of the bridge may have been Gillespie Graham the architect for the 1838–42 extension and embellishments to the castle in the run up to the royal visit.
R Paxton and J Shipway
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
