Taken for granted by drivers, cyclists and pedestrians every day are the magnificent seven bridges over the River Nith through Dumfries town centre.
However, each and every one is a triumph of engineering not only spanning the Nith but also the centuries.
So, when Lauryn Steel, an economic development officer with the council’s strategic economic investment service, found out her children’s school trip was cancelled due to cases of Covid-19 at the venue, she stepped in to “bridge” the gap.
Lauryn quickly pulled together an ad hoc tour of the bridges following on from project work she’d been doing with the P5–7 class.
It has resulted in the Dumfries Bridges Civil Engineering Trail which is contained in a new leaflet produced by the Institution of Civil Engineers in partnership with Dumfries and Galloway Council.
It can be downloaded at https://www.ice.org.uk/download-centre/dumfries-bridges-civil-engineering-trail/ for everyone to follow the trail from the east side of the river at Greensands to the Kirkpatrick Maxmillan Bridge at Castledykes Park.
In addition, the website offers an engineer-led guided walk for groups on request, as well as more information on civil engineers and the important role they play in our everyday lives.
For the Dumfries bridges, that reflects the story of transport – from horse-drawn carriages to motor cars – to the social history and rise in prominence of the town.
Each bridge is steeped in its own history and some have a number of names. The leaflet includes the engineering behind them.
First on the trail as the northernmost – connecting Greensands with the Nithside areas of town – is the officially named Loreburn Cycleway Bridge.
Built in 2000, the modern steel truss pedestrian and cycle bridge is also known locally as the Millennium Bridge or Boathouse Bridge. Its job is to carry the National Cycle Network route 7 over the waters.
However, the newest to be built is at the opposite end of the trail – the steel bowstring arch Kirkpatrick Macmillan Bridge, which opened in 2006 as a foot and cycle bridge at the lowest crossing point over the River Nith in Dumfries at the end of Dock Park.
It is named after bicycle inventor, Keir blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan and its 70-tonne steel deck is suspended from two curved steel arches by high-tensile bars.
The oldest is the stately sandstone Devorgilla Bridge over the Nith at Whitesands which was first built in 1432. It had to be partly rebuilt in 1620 after five arches at its western end were destroyed in heavy flooding. It originally had nine semicircular stone arches and was 13ft wide.
Lauryn’s leaflet states that the “The Auld Brig” – as it is affectionately known – is actually “the oldest surviving multiple arched masonry bridge in Scotland”.
It has quite a history and owes its existence to Lady Devorgilla, a daughter of the first Lord of Galloway and founder of Balliol College, Oxford. Originally it was made from timber and thought to date from 1270.
When the “new bridge” – Buccleuch Street Bridge – opened in 1794, the Devorgilla was closed to traffic and became pedestrian only. It had three of its arches at the eastern end taken down and replaced by a flight of steps. A single pointed Gothic arch remains at the western end. The paving on the Whitesands marks the “lost” piers.
At the end of the structure on the west side The Old Bridge House is home to a museum of town life run by the council’s museum service. It dates back to 1660 and was previously a house, place of worship and an inn.
The Buccleuch Bridge, opened in 1794 and designed by local architect, Thomas Boyd, links Buccleuch Street with Galloway Street.
The five-span masonry arched structure was built from dressed sandstone and has been updated over the decades to accommodate the chances in transport using it.
The five arches increase in size towards the centre of the bridge and the smallest is a pedestrian underpass connecting Greensands with Whitesands.
From an engineering point of view there is still plenty to see in its structure as it was actually built too narrow and so, in 1893, had pedestrian footpaths added to widen it and they cantilever out from the original structure. Also, the pointed piers (cutwaters) that support the bridge have been extended upwards to support the footpath.
This work was carried out by James Barbour and Sir William Arrol. The latter had already, by this time, built the Forth Bridge, the Tay Bridge and London’s Tower Bridge.
Much of the town’s 19th century prosperity was based on the tweed mills which employed 1,400 at their height. On the Maxwelltown side of the Nith stands what is left of the Troqueer and Rosefield Mills with a local group working to save the magnificent-looking shell and give it a new purpose for the 21st century.
The 19th century suspension bridge was built in 1875 to accommodate the mill workers crossing the Nith to the west bank.
Lauryn’s research shows that it was opened by the then Lord Provost T.F Smith in 1875 and was described at the event as “an airy graceful thing of beauty that might have been conjured into existence by the wand of an eastern magician.”
That is particularly interesting as many of the showpeople who attend Dumfries’ fairs call it “Biddall’s Bridge” after the Biddall family.
George Biddall (1848-1909) came to Dumfries with his family twice a year for the fairs, bringing their famous ghost illusion and mobile cinema and always set up in the same place every year – at the foot of the suspension bridge on the Whitesands. It was a prime spot for trade, given the foot traffic from mill workers and others.
On another note, the first house upstream of the suspension bridge at 1 Kenmure Terrace was where Dad’s Army actor John Laurie lived, although he was born a few hundred yards away at a house in Troqueer Road.
From an engineering point of view, the “wobbly bridge” is significant because the deck is supported from pairs of wrought iron chain-linked cables suspended from the Doric cast iron columns. Ornamental arches linking the columns each feature the Dumfries coat of arms with its patron saint of St Michael.
That brings us nicely to the multi-span arched St Michael’s Bridge built from reinforced concrete but faced with sandstone to blend in with the two older ones – and is the town’s other vehicle transport bridge.
Apparently the original plans for the bridge date back to 1913 but it wasn’t opened until 1929 – maybe due to the First World War?
As it linked the two burgh of Dumfries and Maxwelltown is bears the coat of arms of both.
The last – and possible most spectacular “crossing” – is the The Caul, downstream of Devorgilla Bridge.
Records show that a ford once existed close to where the caul is and was used by pilgrims passing through Dumfries on their way to Whithorn and St Ninian’s Cave.
Lauryn’s findings are that the sandstone weir was built in 1705 to divert water from the River Nith which was causing erosion of the Whitesands on the east bank.
It was also which was constructed to provide more water power for a grain mill by raising the water level upstream behind
it.
The mill was converted into a hydro electric station in 1911 and helped power the town’s street lighting but has since been rebuilt and is now home to the Robert Burns Centre and Film Theatre – with its exhibition on National Bard Robert Burns’ life and death in the town.
