Regent Bridge, Waterloo Place - geograph

Regent Bridge is a road bridge in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, where the

A1 road A list of roads designated A1, sorted by alphabetical order of country. * A01 highway (Afghanistan), a long ring road or beltway connecting Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar * A1 motorway (Albania), connecting Durrës and Kukës * A001 highw ...

enters the

New Town New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

from the east and passes over a hollow near

Calton Hill Calton Hill () is a hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, situated beyond the east end of Princes Street and included in the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Views of, and from, the hill are often used in photographs and paintings of the cit ...

. The bridge was built in the 19th century, in the neoclassical style as the medieval city was modernised and expanded to the north and east.

History

In the early nineteenth century, the inconvenient access to Edinburgh by the great London road had long been a subject of general regret. To enter the city from the south, the route ran through narrow and inconvenient streets, an approach that was considered unsuited to the general elegance of the place. In 1814, however, a magnificent entrance was commenced from Calton Hill to

Princes Street Princes Street ( gd, Sràid nam Prionnsan) is one of the major thoroughfares in central Edinburgh, Scotland and the main shopping street in the capital. It is the southernmost street of Edinburgh's New Town, stretching around 1.2 km (thr ...

over a deep

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. In 1813, Sir John Marjoribanks, the then Lord Provost of Edinburgh, revived a plan to build a jail on the slopes of Calton Hill.Marjoribanks,Roger (2014) "Edinburgh Portrait, Sir John Marjoribanks , Bart, MP (1763–1833)" The Book of the Edinburgh Club, Volume 10, Pp 151-156, In order to access this, open up the slopes of Calton Hill to development and shorten the road to East Lothian and England, he presented the plan to build Regent Bridge to the City magistrates on 1 March 1814 with a projected cost of about £20,000 and backed up by a feasibility study by the engineer

Robert Stevenson Robert Stevenson may refer to: * Robert Stevenson (actor and politician) (1915–1975), American actor and politician * Robert Stevenson (civil engineer) (1772–1850), Scottish lighthouse engineer * Robert Stevenson (director) (1905–1986), Engli ...

.Marjoribanks, Roger. "Sir John Marjoribanks"
The Marjoribanks Journal Number 4
August 1996. Accessed 22 May 2010 Although complicated (part of the old Calton burial ground had to be moved, a fifty foot valley had to be bridged, solid rock had to be blasted and buildings at the east end of

had to be demolished) the project was accepted and Waterloo Place on top of the bridge was designed by Archibald Elliot. Construction under the direction of Robert Stevenson began in 1816 and the bridge was finished in 1819. It is a major example of Greek Revival architectural work of the time. The arch is semicircular, and wide. At the north front it is forty-five feet (13.716 m) in height, but at the south front it is , because the ground declines to the south. The roadway is formed by a number of reverse arches on each side. The great arch is ornamented on the south and north by two ornamental triumphal open arches, supported by elegant Corinthian columns. The whole property purchased to open the communication to the city by this bridge cost £52,000, and the building areas sold for the then immense sum of £35,000. The street along the bridge was called Waterloo Place, as it was laid in the year of the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Sevent ...

. Regent Bridge was officially opened on 18 August 1819 during the visit of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg to Edinburgh.

Notes

*''This article contains text from "Regent Bridge, Edinburgh", an article in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, Issue 326, 9 August 1828, now in the public domain.

References

External References

* {{coord, 55, 57, 14, N, 3, 11, 14, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Bridges in Edinburgh Arch bridges in the United Kingdom New Town, Edinburgh Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Calton Hill Works of Robert Stevenson (civil engineer) Bridges completed in 1819 1819 establishments in Scotland