Bridges over Rivers, Valleys - and Centuries: Sepia Saturday

This week's photographic prompt from Sepia Saturday shows an electric tramway crossing a bridge over a valley and major road.

Cue for a tour across countries and centuries  looking at bridges that span rivers, valleys  and a loch, mainly in the Scottish Borders.   So do read  about the place where poet Robert Burns first set eyes on England,  the Marriage House  by the River Tweed,  used by runaway couples from England;  and the riots at Kelso about the bridge tolls;    and I  finish by looking at a famous bridge with links to my own family history.

What  struck me in writing this post  is the length of time - i.e. 200 years - that many of these old bridges served their  community, before replacement structures were built  - progress sometimes seems very slow!

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A view of the three bridges, spanning two hundred years of history,  crossing the River Tweed at Leaderfoot, near Melrose in the Scottish Borders - 3 miles from my home.  In the middle the original narrow stone bridge built c.1776 to replace a ford crossing - this remained the main road linking Edinburgh with the north of England until the building in 1974 of the concrete bridge in the foreground which carries the traffic today. In the background is the impressive 19-arched railway viaduct opened in 1865 - the major engineering feat of the Berwickshire Railway,  until its closure 100 years later in 196

 

The Viaduct  remains a  popular spot for  photographers today  - here a view taken from the old road bridge which is now only open to walkers and cyclists. 

Another modern structure  - this time the Europa Brucke, linking Germany & Austria across the Alps into Italy; a photograph taken as we flew into Innsbruck. The bridge is 2,549 feet  long.  According to Wikipedia, it hosts a 192 metre Bungee Jump  - the 5th highest in the world.construction began in 1959 and the bridge opened to traffic in 1964. 

Back to the Scottish Borders  and the many crossings over  its famous  salmon river  the Tweed, as it weaves its 90 mile journey to the sea. 

Mertoun Bridge, near St. Boswells, built in 1837.

Coldstream Bridge over the River Tweed  marks the boundary between Scotland and England  and opened in 1767, built at a cost of £6000 - £725,000 in current values. (www.measuringworth.com).  It was paid for  by a government grant, local subscriptions and loans from Edinburgh Banks, to be paid back from the bridge tolls.  
 

But Coldstream Bridge Tollhouse at the north end of the bridge,  was more than just the location for collecting taxes.  For it was akin to Gretna Green towards the west as  the location for a Scottish  "Irregular Marriage".  This was in the form of a verbal declaration by the couple  giving their consent  before witnesses and did not require a clergyman, but anyone who took on the role for a fee.  No notice, such as banns,  was required, no parental consent  and no residency requirement.  Such marriages were valid in Scotland but were increasingly frowned upon and became less  and less acceptable. 

In the meantime, however, many English couples in particular,  eloped to places just across the Border,  to escape the stricter English marriage laws and obtain a quick, easy  and cheaper marriage.     

It was on the bridge that Scottish bard  Robert Burns had his first glimpse of England, as marked  by a plaque.

                                

Another crossing of the River Tweed with the Rennie Bridge at Kelso. It was built in 1800-3 to replace one washed away in floods of 1797. Designed by John Rennie, it was an earlier and smaller scale version of the Waterloo Bridge, which he designed for London. 

The Toll House, where the payment had to be made, was the scene of a riot in 1854, when  local people   objected to continuing to pay the tolls when the building costs had been long cleared. It still took three years for tolls to be withdrawn. For nearly 200 years, this narrow bridge  remained the only bridge across the Tweed at Kelso until the building of a new one in 1998 to the east of the town. 

From large to smaller structures:

Craigsford Bridge over the Leader Water at Earlston (my home village)   was built around 1737.  Until the building of the new toll road (the later A68) at the end of the century, it was the main route to Edinburgh.  It was sometimes referred to as the Mill Brig,  being close to the Simpson & Fairbairn Mill that produced textiles until its closure in 1969.

This  graceful,late 18th century bridge spans the Leader Water  linking  the neighbouring estates of Carolside and Leadervale at Earlston.

"The Statistical Account of Scotland" of 1834  gives us a beautiful description of Carolside  

"Poised on a green plateau beside the River Leader and sheltered by surrounding slopes of its own extensive woodlands, as a sweet and secure asylum from the toils and troubles of the world'."

Taken on a hill walk, here we  look down on  the same bridge in the wooded glen.

To the Highlands and the Skye Road Bridge,opened in 1995, to the island that is  an iconic  symbol of Scotland's history.  The bridge across Loch Alsh links Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland with Kyleakin on Skye.   If you fancy a more romantic journey  to the Isle, you can still travel, as in the  song,  "over the sea to Skye" on the Mallaig ferry to the south of the island.

And finally a link with my family history.

My  brother is standing in front of the cast iron arched Ironbridge over the River Severn in Shropshire  - England's longest river.It was the first iron bridge to be built In 1781  and gave the valley the  description of   "the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution".It is now a World Heritage  Site.  

Our father spent his childhood in Broseley on the other  side of the river to Ironbridge.  Dad  went to school there, sang in the choir from the age of seven and began his working life at a grocer's shop, delivering goods by pony and cart.  Dad's father had a 35 minutes walk across the bridge  each way every day to get to his work at the Coalbrookdale Power House in the Severn valley.

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity to share 
their family history and memories through photographs

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  to see what  bridges other bloggers have come across.