Crathes Castle, East Lodge Bridge

C33 Bridges near East Entrance

(early-19thC photographs, Ap.13.20-21)

Near the East Lodge, lying only partly within the NTS ownership boundary but of such interest to be worth mentioning, are a series of seven bridges or crossings of the Burn of Coy related to communications routes of different periods, including three that are listed. These are well described by Walkden (1987) as follows:

“Quite by chance, it is at Crathes that an unique showpiece is to be seen of the development of communications along Deeside. Here, over the Burn of Coy near the sign-posted access to Crathes Castle (NO 742962), no less than six crossings of different types illustrate 300 years of change. Access is best obtained by turning immediately right at the main entrance to Crathes and following the track beneath the present main road. A good viewpoint is the flat timber-topped steel girder bridge just beyond.

“Upstream can be seen first the heavily engineered reinforced concrete bridge carrying the present A93, built in 1939 by Banchory engineer James Henderson, then the second of two Aberdeen aqueducts, constructed in 1924, then further upstream the graceful granite arch of the Old Turnpike road (1802) (listed Cat.B). This carries an abandoned section of the main road of the 1930’s, well worth a look on your return by passing the Crathes entrance gates and turning sharp right. On the left of the turnpike bridge (not visible from the girder bridge) is a smaller arch over the lade leading downstream to Milton of Crathes.

Downstream from the girder bridge is first the railway bridge (1852) (listed Cat.C[S]) and then, most significant of all, the original hump-back bridge of the Old Deeside Road (listed Cat.B). This cobble-paved Pack Horse bridge with its low parapets is one of the few remaining in Scotland and may date around 1700. Together these crossings provide a remarkable chronology of civil engineering on Deeside.”

G M Fraser in ‘The Old Deeside Road’ considers the pack-horse bridge the most interesting relic of the pre-turnpike road and among the few remaining pack-horse bridges in Scotland.

“Altogether we have about a quarter of a mile of the old highway at this part, and at the burn (Burn of Coy) we find the most interesting relic of the old highway that exists between Aberdeen and Invercauld. Here stands, closely under the shadow of the bridge that carries the railway over the valley of the burn, the little stone bridge that carried the Deeside highway over the stream from at least the early years of the eighteenth century till the old highway went out of use there in 1802. It is the only complete bridge of the old highway that remains along the whole course of the road.

This most interesting little structure ought to be classed, perhaps, with the little Ruthrieston bridge, Aberdeen, built in 1693-4, among the few remaining pack-horse bridges of Scotland. It is slightly less in size than even the Ruthrieston Bridge, but one cannot definitely date the Crathes Bridge, and it seems rather less “weathered” than the Ruthrieston one, as if of rather later date. It is a granite bridge of one low, semi-circular arch, constructed - like the Ruthrieston Bridge - of dressed stones. The parapets are low, sufficient merely to give protection on the roadway, and not high enough to impede traffic by pack-horse or otherwise. It measures about thirty feet long from end to end of the parapets, and the roadway - which rises to the middle of the bridge, as was the custom in the old days - is carefully paved with cobble-stone paving, as in the case of the Ruthrieston Bridge. The workmanship of the bridges is very much the same, and the similarity in dimensions is seen in the following precise measurements:-

Ruthrieston Bridge ...

Crathes Bridge

Width over parapets 9 feet 10 inches

Width between parapets 8 feet 4 inches

Span of arch 13 feet 6 inches

Spring of arch (segment of circle) 5 feet 0 inches

Parapets 1 foot 8 inches high at centre; less at ends.

The arch-stones at Crathes Bridge are pick-dressed, but not such a fine job as the Ruthrieston bridge ...

The Crathes Bridge is paved more or less promiscuously, but a single line of cobble-stones runs across the roadway in the middle of the bridge.

This little bridge at Crathes is a very dainty and significant relic. It never was a coaching bridge, and it may seem strange that a bridge of such small dimensions should have been sufficient for main road traffic in this district down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But wheeled carriages were late in coming into use in Aberdeenshire.* The first modern two-wheeled carriage to appear in Aberdeenshire, about 1812, belonged to Mr Ramsay of Barra, and the mail coach from Aberdeen to Inverness began about that date, but the coach to Banchory by the Deeside turnpike began much later. The modest appearance of the little bridge is accentuated against the high brick-faced arch of the railway bridge that rises on the north side of it, which tends, also, to obscure the little structure from the view of those who pass in the train, and from those who pass on the turnpike still farther north. It is still used as a service bridge for the fields (and a near cut to the station) for Milton of Crathes, but it is none the worse of its long use in this way, for even the parapets are still in complete order. And as Sir Thomas Burnett of Crathes, the proprietor, is well aware of its interest and significance, the bridge may stand for many a long to day to come to tell its little bit of the story of the old highway (Fraser, 1921, Chapter IX).

The next chapter describes the relationship of the c.1802 turnpike road to the old highway.

After the little bridge over the Crathes Burn (or Burn of Coy), we see almost nothing more of the Old Deeside road for nearly six miles - that is, to the Bridge of Cannie, near the twenty-first milestone.

At the East Lodge of Crathes, near the little bridge before mentioned, the turnpike makes a sharp bend to the south, a very awkward turn, as all motorists and cyclists know. That bend took the new turnpike close to the old highway, and in a short distance farther - the turnpike still holding south-westward - the new road was made actually on the line of it. From that point, at the fifteenth milestone, the turnpike was constructed mostly on the line of the old road till the seventeenth milestone near Banchory Parish Church, having the Deeside railway - from its construction in 1852-3 - closely adjoining, on the south, all the way.

The making of that piece of the turnpike occasioned a great deal of trouble in the district in the beginning of the nineteenth century. As formerly mentioned, the turnpike from Aberdeen to Mills of Drum, thirteen miles and a half, was constructed in 1798.

Under a supplementary Act of Parliament, 1800, the turnpike was continued from Mills of Drum to Charlestown of Aboyne, a further distance of sixteen miles and three-quarters, and was constructed in 1802. The portion Aberdeen to Mills of Drum cost £5008 to construct, but the portion from Mills of Drum to Aboyne, although fully three miles longer, cost only £4312, due to the fact, no doubt, that in the second portion such a considerable part of the Old Deeside road was utilised” (Fraser, 1921, Chapter X).

There follows some detail on the financing of the road and its subsequent income, with a subscription by adjoining proprietors including £60 from Sir Robert Burnett of Leys (see Appendix 7).

In total there are seven crossings of the Burn of Coy in this short length south of the lake, viz:

(within NTS ownership)

• c.1858 lake weir bridge, timber (Ap.9.18)

• 1802 turnpike road bridge, granite (listed Cat. B) (Ap.13.20);

• 1920s aqueduct, iron pipe;

(outwith NTS ownership)

• 1939 road bridge, reinforced concrete;

• late-20thC makeshift girder and concrete slab bridge;

• c.1852 railway bridge, granite (listed Cat. C [S]);

• mid-18thC (?) old road pack-horse bridge, granite (listed Cat. B) (Ap.13.21).

(CRT97 C33)

Information from NTS (BNMMB) January 2015