Mouth Bridge

Heritage listing

Category B Date Added 09/06/1971 Local Authority Scottish Borders Planning Authority Scottish Borders Parish Edrom NGR NT 82522 52981 Coordinates 382522, 652981 — Circa 1795. Single segmental-arched, symmetrically humped bridge with SW and NE elevations and long ramped approaches. Sandstone rubble with broadly droved dressings to voussoir, arch ring, coping of parapet and terminal dies; rock-faced ashlar below impost bands of arch. Mutuled cornice, rising to point to centre and coped parapet. Walls to E and N terminated by drum piers/dies; quadrant walls to S and W; wing walls step inwards towards centre; walls buttressed (all soon after date of construction, except in 1945 SE buttress added). Plaque to SW elevation, road-side of parapet, noting date of restoration, in 1992, by Borders Regional Council. — There was a ford recorded in 1771 at this point of Blackadder Water. There was a major flood of the river during the 18th century. The bridge was first mentioned in 1797. There has been the supposition that the bridge was built by the farmer-architect, Alexander Stevens (c1730-96) who according to his Gentleman's Magazine obituarist, "in the course of the last 40 years, erected more stone bridges, and other buildings in water, than any other man in these kingdoms... The North of England and Scotland exhibit numberless works of his execution". There is an undated design for a bridge in the RIBA collection of drawings for the Blackadder estate. It is not known whether this was for this particular bridge, or for one actually in the vicinity of Blackadder House, which lies a couple of miles downstream. The bridge is a good example of a large single arch bridge of the later 18th century. It has a 70ft span, which is quite unusually large, although not the largest, in Scotla

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.