The Old Spey Bridge is a footbridge on the outskirts of Fochabers in

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

, Scotland, which formerly carried the main road between

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

and

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

over the River Spey. Originally built between 1801 and 1806 by George Burn, it was partially destroyed in the

Muckle Spate The Muckle Spate was a great flood in August 1829, which devastated much of Strathspey, in the north east of Scotland. (Muckle is a word for 'much' or 'great', chiefly used in North East England and Scotland.) It began raining on the evening of ...

of 1829, with two of its arches being washed away.

Archibald Simpson Archibald Simpson (4 May 1790 – 23 March 1847) was a Scottish architect, who along with his rival John Smith, is regarded as having fashioned the character of Aberdeen as "The Granite City".Simpson, William Douglas, (1947) ''The Archibald S ...

repaired the bridge in 1831 with a single timber span, which was reconstructed in

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

in 1853. The bridge is designated a Category A listed building.

Description

The Old Spey Bridge crosses the River Spey at Fochabers, between the parishes of

Bellie Bellie is a locality in Moray, Scotland. Little survives of the old parish church at Bellie, located 2 miles north of Fochabers, although its Kirkyard, graveyard is preserved. There is a Bellie Kirk in Fochabers, which replaced the old church in ...

and Speymouth. The present structure has three spans, all supported by

segmental arch A segmental arch is a type of arch with a circular arc of less than 180 degrees. It is sometimes also called a scheme arch. The segmental arch is one of the strongest arches because it is able to resist thrust. To prevent failure, a segmental arc ...

es. The two arches at the eastern end, surviving from when the bridge was built, are of

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, with large

oculi An oculus (; ) is a circular opening in the center of a dome or in a wall. Originating in antiquity, it is a feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture. It is also known as an '' œil-de-boeuf'' from the French, or simply a "bull's-e ...

in the rubble-built

spandrels 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 ...

between them, and with tooled ashlar cutwaters. The western arch, built to replace two arches that were destroyed in a flood, is of

, supported by three ribs, with lattice grids connecting supporting the roadway to the arch, and is known as the longest cast iron span of its kind in Scotland. A modern metal

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

runs along the length of the bridge. The bridge is no longer open to road traffic, but is accessible to pedestrians.

History

Records show that a ferry, known as the boat of bog, crossed the Spey at or around this location since at least the mid-thirteenth century. The first bridge at the location, carrying the road from

, was designed and built by George Burn, working with his brother James, between 1801 and 1806;

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 ...

had also submitted a design for the structure, but this was rejected. The bridge lost its two western arches in a major flooding event, known as the

, in 1829, which saw most of the bridges in Moray washed away. The 5th Duke of Gordon commissioned

to repair the structure between 1831 and 1832; this was done with single span supported by a timber arch. In 1853 the timber arch was reconstructed in cast iron by James Hoby & Co. A road deck was built by James Abernethy & Co in 1912. The carriage was widened in the 1960s, when it carried the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness, but was bypassed around 1970 by a new steel and concrete bridge a short distance downstream, and retained as a footbridge. The bridge was designated a

Category B 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 was upgraded to Category A in 1988.

References

{{Reflist Listed bridges in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Moray