Craigellachie Bridge

The Craigellachie Bridge is a cast iron arch bridge located in Craigellachie near the village of Aberlour in Moray, Scotland.is the oldest cast iron bridge in Scotland. – United Kingdom.

The Craigellachie Bridge It was designed by the famous civil engineer Thomas Telford and built between 1812 and 1814. The bridge has a single opening of about 46m span and was revolutionary in its day in that it used an extremely slim arch that could not have been made in traditional masonry.

The iron parts were made at the Plas Kynaston foundry in Cefn Mawr near Ruabon in northeast Wales by William Hazledine, who had a number of Telfords bridges cast. The parts were transported from the foundry via the Ellesmere Canal to the sea and then by sea to Speymouth, where they were loaded onto wagons and taken to the construction site. Investigations in the 1960s showed that the cast iron has an unusually high tensile strength.

The Craigellachie Bridge became unsuitable for modern road vehicles. Nevertheless, it carried car traffic over the Spey until 1972, when it was replaced by a reinforced concrete bridge built by Sir William Arrol & Co., which opened in 1970 and now runs over the A941. Telford’s bridge is still in good condition and can be used by pedestrians and cyclists. It is a Grade A listed building and was included in the List of International Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2007.

Access : Coordinates:57.490875, -3.193675 / Address: River Spey, Craigellachie, Aberlour AB38 9ST, United Kingdom / Craigellachie Bridge located near to the picturesque coastal village in Fife, Scotland / Inter-city buses don’t call here, look for connections at Halbeath or Edinburgh.  / By car :  From M90 just north of the new Forth bridge take exit 1C onto A921 east towards Aberdour.

Highlights :

•  At each of its ends, two 15 m high towers rise in a medieval style including loopholes and battlements, and support the 45.7 m of the cast iron arch.
•  The bridge inspired a famous Strathspey dance, written by William Marshall in 1814.
•  the site of a parade during the merger of the regiments The Gordon Highlanders and The Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) giving the one The Highlanders in 1994.
•  The bridge was commemorated on a Royal Mail postage stamp in 2015.

Activities : Scenic Driving- Auto Touring / sightseeing / photo opportunities-Architecture Photography / trekking

Go next : Aberdour , a picturesque coastal village in Fife. / Burntisland , a coastal town in the kingdom of Fife / Dunfermline , a historic town in the Kingdom of Fife