The Drygrange Old Bridge is a disused

road bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

over the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, 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 River Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers ...

near

Melrose Melrose may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Melrose, Scottish Borders, a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland ** Melrose Abbey, ruined monastery ** Melrose RFC, rugby club Australia * Melrose, Queensland, a locality in the South Burnett R ...

in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by West Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian, and East Lothian to the north, the North Sea to the east, Dumfries and Galloway to the south-west, South Lanarkshire to the we ...

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 road. It was listed as a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

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 beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...

to the east, engineered by

Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners was a British firm of consulting civil engineers, founded in 1922 by Sir Alexander Gibb, and initially headquartered in London before moving west to Reading in Berkshire in 1974 to the former site of Suttons Seeds. I ...

. 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 that 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 A cutwater is the forward part of the prow or stem of a watercraft around the waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. A waterline can also refer to any line on a ship's hull that is paralle ...

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 fil ...

s reduce the weight of the structure, an innovation by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford (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 Scotland, as well ...

. 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 (‘three hills’ in Latin), 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, Scottish Borders, Melrose in the Scottish Borders. History The viaduct was opened on 16 November 1863 to carry the Berwickshire ...

, 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 (‘three bridges’ in Latin), a modern version of the Roman name.

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