The Drygrange Old Bridge is a disused

road bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

over the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water ( gd, Abhainn Thuaidh, sco, Watter o Tweid, cy, Tuedd), is a river long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the R ...

near Melrose in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

History

It was built between 1776 and 1780 to a design by Scottish architect and engineer Alexander Stevens. It replaced a ferry as part of an improvement to a

turnpike Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...

road. It was listed as a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1971. It carried the A68 over the Tweed until 1974 when it was replaced by a

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite of steel and reinf ...

to the east, engineered by

Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners was a British firm of consulting civil engineers, based at Queen Anne's Lodge, Queen Anne's Gate and subsequently Telford House, Tothill Street, Westminster, London, until 1974, when it relocated to Earley House, 427 ...

. The old bridge is not open to vehicles, but can be crossed by pedestrians and bicycles.

Design

Three bridges over the River Tweed at Leaderfoot - geograph

The Old Bridge has a central span of , with two side spans of , and a smaller arch in the south

abutment An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...

. The central arch has a rise of . The rounded

cutwater In architecture, a starling (or sterling) is a defensive bulwark, usually built with pilings or bricks, surrounding the supports (or piers) of a bridge or similar construction. Starlings may be shaped to ease the flow of the water around the brid ...

s are carried up to the level of the roadway and are topped with angular pedestrian refuges. Hollow

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s reduce the weight of the structure, an innovation by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotla ...

. The bridge has been modified by raising the level of the roadway on the approaches to make it more level, but the level of the original roadway can be seen in the string

course Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

on the exterior of the bridge. It is near to the Roman settlement of Trimontium, which is to the south-west of the viaduct. To the west of the bridge is the

Leaderfoot Viaduct The Leaderfoot Viaduct, also known as the Drygrange Viaduct, is a railway viaduct over the River Tweed near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. History The viaduct was opened on 16 November 1863 to carry the Berwickshire Railway, which connected ...

, a disused railway viaduct, and to the east of the Old Bridge is its modern successor. This group of three bridges is sometimes known as Tripontium.

References

External links

{{River Tweed Bridges in the Scottish Borders Listed bridges in Scotland Category A listed buildings in the Scottish Borders Bridges across the River Tweed Bridges completed in 1780