Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands

Event ID 962766

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/962766

Greystones Bridge, Watten

(Institute Civil Engineers Historic Engineering Works no. HEW 1667)

Sometimes known as Achingale Bridge, this bridge, carrying the A882 Thurso to Wick Road over the Acharole Burn, is a good Caithness example of a three-arch Telford bridge. Its segmental rubble/flat-stone masonry arches are of 26 ft, 28 ft, 26 ft span. The bridge, built in 1816, was widened from 1931–33 by 6 ft on the north side to provide a roadway width of 24 ft 4 in.

Two miles west of Greystones Bridge, at Watten on the same road, is Oldhall Bridge over a burn, built from 1815–19 under Telford’s general direction and now bypassed and deteriorating. It consists of a single semicircular arch about 16 ftwide and 24 ft high with an arch-ring of Caithness flagstones about 2 ft deep, paved invert, random rubble spandrels and approach retaining walls in similar stone. The roadway is 18 ft wide.

Both bridges were erected as part of the improvement of the Thurso road. The surveyor was H. Fulton and the contractor J. Traill Esq. and others. Great difficulty was experienced in letting a contract for this 20 mile length of road which, at the then large sum of £13 365, cost about 30% more than the estimate.

R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.