Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606399
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606399
This five-arch bridge, now carrying the B846 road over the Tay, was built in 1733–34 as part of a system of military roads in Scotland amounting to about 250 miles. It is the most ‘architectural’ of 40 bridges planned and laid out under General Wade’s direction from ca.1725. Although generally known as ‘Wade’s Bridge’ it was designed by William Adam and built of a grey-green chlorite schist from nearby Farrockhill quarry.
The nearly semicircular arches are of 30 ft, 35 ft, 60 ft, 35 ft and 30 ft span and the roadway is 14 ft wide. The bridge is carried on some 1200 timber piles shod with iron. It is said that the stones were prepared and numbered at the quarry before being sent to site and that the cost of the bridge was £4095. The timber centring of the main arch may have been struck too early as there is a sag of about 3 in. in the parapet. A small dam downstream of the bridge reduces scour to the bridge foundations.
The bridge is ornamented and elegant as befits the work of Adam but Southey, perhaps reflecting Telford’s view on their visit in 1819, wrote, ‘At a distance it looks well, but makes a wretched appearance upon close inspection. There are four unmeaning obelisks upon the central arch, and the parapet is so high that you cannot see over it.’ The roadway surface may have been raised later as the parapet comment now only applies locally at its upward sweeps or ‘juts’.
R Paxton and J Shipway
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
