Linlathen East Bridge

Heritage listing

Category A Date Added 29/10/1991 Local Authority Dundee Planning Authority Dundee Burgh Dundee NGR NO 46394 32855 Coordinates 346394, 732855 — Circa 1795-1810. Single arch light estate road bridge. Wrought with some cast-iron, coursers and ashlar sandstone buttresses. Segmental arch with sprandrels formed by plain concentric circles diminishing in size towards crown of arch, linked by tie bars at soffit; parapet of plain quatrefoils with fencing added later. Timber decking and springing points have been raised, reducing camber. Buttresses slope back from river bed and have balustraded splays (balustrade extant at NE and SW only). North buttress has small round-headed arch over silted flood channel. — Linlathen House was built for David Graham in 1705 and extended for Thomas Erskine by William Sterling in circa 1830. The steading was dated 1770. This bridge is probably that shown on the 1827 plan of the estate which may have replaced an earlier (circa 1770?) bridge built to give independent access to the steading avoiding the drives to Linlathen House. The bridge appears to follow the 1795 patent of Richard Burdon MP, employed on its largest scale at Sunderland in 1796. The patent involved separate openwork cast-iron voussoirs held together by wrought-iron straps instead of the ribs being cast complete (as at Ironbridge). Two other bridges are known to survive involving this patent at Spanishtown, Jamiaca, 1801, and the solid-looking Tickford Bridge, Newport Pagnell (1819). The first large iron bridged in Europe, near Wroclaw in Silesia (1794-6) similarly had spandrels willed with dimishing rings meeting at a central keystone. The latter was by a Scottish engineer from Carron Ironworks, John Baildon. Pending documentary confirmation, the Linlathen bridge appears to date

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.