Edinburgh Bridges #06 : The North Bridge

This is the granddaddy of Edinburgh's bridges as it sits at the end of Princes St and runs with a slight incline to the north edge of the Old Town. You would not be surprised to know that this is not the first manifestation of a bridge to link over the East end of the Nor' L.och. The previous bridge had three quite large and high spans and was, for the time a respectable width of 40ft but there was construction problem when it was first built in 1765 which caused the north end to collapse killing five people, the rebuilding closed the bridge until 1772. The bridge lasted for another 124 years until pressure from above, traffic pressure that includes public transport of busses and trams and people and below from the ongoing expansion of Waverley station meant that a larger bridge was needed. This resulted in the bridge as we see it now, constructed over three years from 1894-1897 with three 175ft long and 75ft wide arches constructed with steel girders and it should not surprise anyone that the designer/builder chosen was Sir William Arrol & Co. builders of the Forth Bridge.

The image shows some of the cast iron detail picked out with contrasting paints applied in a recent overhaul