Sow Bridge

Heritage listing

Category C Date Added 10/12/2001 Local Authority North Lanarkshire Planning Authority North Lanarkshire Burgh Motherwell And Wishaw NGR NS 75744 55031 Coordinates 275744, 655031 — Andrew Cassells, circa 1860. Bridge and landscaped water feature. Artificial oval pond leading to stone lined, serpentine rill. Single span bridge over gully to S elevation, embedded in bank to N. Unusual, checkerboard ventilated stone work to coped parapet. Squared and tooled sandstone. — Cassells was a local gardener and landscaper probably employed directly by RW Billings to carry out the landscaping of the seventeenth century formal gardens, parallel with Billings' remodelling of Dalzell House. A bridge had been built over the burn at an earlier date, probably when Dalzell House was remodelled in the mid-seventeenth century, to form the main axial drive to the house at the centre of the formal landscape. The burn had originally risen in woods beyond the drying greens to the north of the main drive. Cassells diverted the burn into a decorative feeder pond and rill leading to a dam beneath the bridge. The dam spills water over rocks in the gully on the south side creating a picturesque cascade. At present (2001) it is hard to see the cascade, as the gully is overgrown.

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.