Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands
Date 2007
Event ID 929838
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/929838
Old Spey Bridge, Fochabers
The first bridge, spanning the Spey on this site, was built from 1801–05. It was a symmetrical bridge with four spans of 75 ft, 95 ft, 95 ft and 75 ft. At the western end it abutted against a high outcrop of rock and at the east it was approached over an inclined embankment 1043 ft long. The bridge was designed by George Burn and built in partnership with his brother James. Although Telford was critical of the disposition of the piers, the masonry of the bridge, with Burn’s architectural detailing, was generally admired.
The great flood of 1829 destroyed the western river pier and the two fallen arches were replaced by a single 186 ft span formed with three timber arch ribs, one of Scotland’s most notable timber bridges. The ribs comprised curved laminated timbers ‘38 inches in depth at the spring and
34 inches at the crown, composed of three beams in depth, and two in thickness of eight inches each; the whole to be scarfed, overlapped and bolted together with wrought-iron bolts one and three-tenths inches
square’. The arch was designed by Archibald Simpson, Aberdeen architect, who dedicated the illustrated view of it to the Duke of Gordon. The contractors were William Minto and William Leslie. A model of this bridge can be seen in the museum at Fochabers.
In 1853 the timber arches were found to be affected by dry rot and were replaced by the present cast-iron arch ribs and posts. The bridge is now bypassed, the A98 road being carried on a modern steel box-girder bridge immediately to the north.
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
