Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands
Date 2007
Event ID 929292
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/929292
Crathie Suspension Bridge, Easter Balmoral
This bridge, originally erected in 1834 by James Justice
Junior, is one of several suspension bridges constructed
in north-east Scotland by the Justice family of Dundee. It
has masonry flood relief arches at either end that support
light-braced iron towers from which the 137 ft central
span is suspended. The bridge is 12 ft wide and presumably
originally accommodated carriages.
The deck is supported both from catenarian bar-link
chains and inclined stays, although neither the latter or
the light trusses beneath provide much support. The
chains consist of pairs of bar-links 14 ft 8 in. long, each of
212in. 12in. cross-section, with a short connecting link
formed from a conventional open link with its sides
pressed together to embrace a 'T' end on a hanger top.
Because of his concern for the safety of its royal users, the
bridge was examined by Brunel when on a visit to the site of
Balmoral Bridge in 1854. He advised Queen Victoria's
representative, 'I believe you may consider it perfectly safe for all ordinary loads tho' quite unfit to bear a crowd of
people or a drove of cattle'.
The deck beams, similar to those of the Justice Bridge at
Haughs of Drimmie, are constructed of square-section iron
bars, but here there is no camber across the width of the
deck and the lower beam members have a pronounced
downward curvature. The timber deck was replaced in
1989.
According to an account in The Engineer, the bridge was
'almost entirely renewed' in 1885 at the expense of Queen
Victoria by Blaikie Brothers of Aberdeen. The main chains
have the appearance of being original.
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
