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Annan, High Street, Bridge Of Annan
Road Bridge (19th Century)
Site Name Annan, High Street, Bridge Of Annan
Classification Road Bridge (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Annan Bridge; River Annan
Canmore ID 66499
Site Number NY16NE 49
NGR NY 19107 66585
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66499
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Annan
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Annandale And Eskdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
NY16NE 49 19107 66585
For successor (by-pass) bridge (NY 19444 67719), see NY16NE 253.
(Location cited as NY 191 666). Annan Bridge, built 1826 by engineer Robert Stevenson. A three-span bridge with dressed-stone arch rings and rubble spandrels. The arches are segmental.
J R Hume 1976.
Bridge over the River Annan at the W end of the town, by Robert Stevenson, 1824-6, is built of red Gallowbank sandstone ashlar, and slopes slightly: three segmental arches and low rounded cutwaters.
J Gifford 1996.
Chunky three-span, segmental-arched Annan Bridge, 1824-6, by Robert Stevenson, lighthouse engineer grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. Refinement of detail worth viewing from ground level, reached by a stairway on the NW abutment.
J R Hume 2000.
This bridge carries the former line of the A75 (T) public road over the River Annan, at the W end of the town of Annan (NY16NE 133). It is depicted, but not noted, on the 1974 edition of the OS 1:2500 map.
The location assigned to this record defines the midpoint of the structure. The available map evidence indicates that it extends from NY c. 19087 66604 to NY c. 19124 66570.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 22 March 2006.
Per contra the above, this bridge carries the B721 public road, the former line of the A75. It is situated at the W end of High Street, Annan.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 12 August 2009.
Publication Account (2007)
A handsome three-span masonry arch bridge on a gradient over the Annan, just west of Annan town centre, on the former Carlisle to Portpatrick road. It was built from 1824–27 in Locharbriggs freestone and has arches of 57 ft span. The roadway is 20 ft wide and the width now between parapets is 2712 ft. The cantilevered footways, supported on iron brackets and pilasters above the cutwaters, were a later addition. The bridge, a notable achievement of Robert Stevenson, is pleasingly ornamented with channelled arch rings, helmeted cutwaters and pilasters with battered faces at the abutments. During its construction a temporary timber
bridge costing £500 was provided alongside to accommodate traffic. Stevenson’s son Alan, destined to create the graceful Skerryvore Lighthouse, gained experience on the bridge’s construction. Its completion in August 1826 was celebrated by the workmen drinking a gallon of whisky!
The original bridge on this site, which was in line with the High Street (the present one is off-set), was condemned Annan Bridge as being beyond repair in 1813 by Telford, who proposed one of his standard prefabricated cast-iron lattice spandrel bridges of 150 ft span of the basic Bonar type in ca.1822. This would probably have cost marginally less than a stone bridge, but the local trustees adopted Stevenson’s design. The contractor was John Lowry and the bridge cost about £6000.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
