The Guard Bridge in Fife (near St Andrew’s) was built in 1419. It has six impressive arches. It crosses the River Eden.
More about it here https://canmore.org.uk/site/32873/guardbridge-guard-bridge#details
Red and Purple on the Move
The Guard Bridge in Fife (near St Andrew’s) was built in 1419. It has six impressive arches. It crosses the River Eden.
More about it here https://canmore.org.uk/site/32873/guardbridge-guard-bridge#details
The Tay Road bridge crosses the River Tay from Dundee to Fife. It is nearly a mile and a half long. Pedestrians and cyclists use the lane between the lanes of traffic. This is not as scary as it sounds as we are well protected.
Thanks to Gus for chumming me that day and putting up with my random (and often sudden) stops for photos.
The Drygrange Old bridge near Melrose in the Scottish Borders is also known as the ‘fly-boat’ bridge because it replaced the ferry there in 1779-80. Isn’t it gorgeous? Zoom in to see the detail – the carved urn ornaments set into the bridge structure, for example.
It is quite difficult to find this bridge because it is small, it blends into its surroundings and is quite overgrown. Near Kilmartin Glen, with the standing stones and other ancient stuff, is the Poltalloch estate. At the East Lodge is this mid 19th century stone bridge over the River Add.
It is made of lattice stonework, with curved stone ballustrates and little towers on top of the ends. Quite amazing and I am sorry that my photos don’t do it justice.
Since visiting this lovely bridge, I have learnt that the house, and presumably the lodges and bridge, were built with profits from slave-worked plantations in Jamaica. The sugar plantations which provided such great profits to families such as the Malcolms (who have owned Poltalloch since 1562) were worked by teenage girls. This takes the gloss of this lovely bridge for me. Kate Phillips has written a carefully researched book about slavery and Scotland . It makes chilling reading.
The Crinan Canal in Argyll was the first canal built in Scotland. It connects Loch Fyne with the Atlantic Ocean. There were six swing bridges but only five remain. I cycled over and back all of them during a warm and sunny afternoon in August. They all look much the same in a photo. I am counting them all as Bridge #25. Only 4 are presented here because of the difficulty of photographing the one at Ardrishaig and the call of dinner at that point.
Swimming in a local lochan was the highlight of this trip to Argyll. I was much happier than I look in the photo.
#10 The Lady & Norham Bridge crosses the River Tweed just north of Norham. Very impressive. Here, as elsewhere, one is struck by the difference between the signs coming into Scotland (they are large and say ‘Welcome to Scotland’) and those coming into England (small and say ‘England’).
#11 Coldstream Bridge is also an old stone bridge, crossing the Tweed which is still the Scotland-England border at that point. It was built btween 1763 and 1766, strengthened and repaired in 1922 and widened in 1960-61. Gorgeous.
Going into England over the Coldstream Bridge, I was rewarded about a mile later by this choice of tart at the wonderful Cornhill Village Shop. Seating outside makes it very sociable. Coffee, cake and sunshine after 2 old bridges – what more could I want?
An added experience was being affectionately called ‘petal’ by a total (male) stranger as we wished each other safe biking. He and his pal were on motor bikes and we shared the sunshine for our coffee break in Cornhill. This is an North-Eastern English endearment. I was quite taken aback thinking of myself as a fragile flower petal. I took extra care on the next bit of road. Lovely cycling territory around there – peaceful and very pretty, on the back roads of course. Petals have no business on the big roads!
Montagu Bridge over the River Esk in the Dalkeith Country Park is lovely. It was designed by William Adam and built in 1792. It was a gift from the Montagu family to the Queensberry family to mark a marriage between the families.
Bridge #2 of my 30-Bridge pledge for #Birthday30 was the Electric Bridge in Musselburgh, East Lothian. This bridge was built in the 1960s to carry the construction traffic for the new Cockenzie coal Power Station. It recently re-opened and is a cyclist-only bridge. Not pretty but very convenient and interesting. Thanks to Jade for the photos and videos.
This is an amazingfoot and cycle bridge which is ‘tri-directional’. That is, it crossed two bodies of water. It’s beautiful and amazing and I recommend that you visit. It is near Maryhill on the canal from Glasgow to Falkirk. I crossed it today, 30th Jan 2023. I passed by lots of other wonderful Glasgow bridges but needed to focus on this one today.
Lovely weather, in spite of the shower in this second video. Lovely rainbows.
My fundraising page is https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/moira-dunworth-bridges
There’s a bit of an overview of this bridges project here.
Part of the plan of ‘Bridges 2023’ is that my grandchildren in New Zealand will follow my progress by putting a sticker on a map of Scotland for each Scottish bridge I cycle across. It was an enormous challenge to get that map to them but it is there now. They will also be doing their own 30 bridges during the year.