Look familiar? Sketch reveals 200-year gap in bridge designs
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IT is less than 10 years since plans for a new bridge over the Firth of Forth were first revealed. And after six years of construction – at a cost of £1.35 billion – the Queensferry Crossing has been completed.
But as traffic begins to use the bridge today, new drawings unearthed by researchers show a remarkably similar proposal was suggested nearly
200 years ago.
The sketch drawn by engineer and surveyor James Anderson in 1818 bears a striking resemblance to the completed crossing, showing a suspension road bridge with its support extending as a straight line from towers.
However, the plans for the “Bridge of Chains” over the Firth of Forth were not deemed feasible at the time.
It would have cost between £175,000 and £200,000 – about £840 million in today’s money – to make the Edinburghborn engineer’s dreams a reality.
The plans for a roadway linking North and South Queensferry were proposed 72 years before completion of the Forth Bridge.
Anderson proudly suggested his bridge would “facilitate the communication between the southern and northern divisions of Scotland”.
The plans were uncovered by Bruce Gittings while he was carrying out research for a project to record every settlement and landmark in Scotland.
According to Mr Gittings, maintaining the remarkable geographical, historical and educational resource is a never-ending process.
Mr Gittings, of Edinburgh University’s School of GeoSciences, said the design was beyond the engineering capabilities of the time. He said: “It is great to be able to add the Queensferry Crossing to the Gazetteer, and important to remember Anderson’s pioneering work.
“His design was beyond the engineering capabilities of the time, as evidenced by the collapse of the Tay Bridge in a storm in 1879 and of the Chain Pier at Trinity in Edinburgh – on which Anderson also worked – in 1898.”
Anderson, who was born in Edinburgh and died there in 1861, was a friend of Thomas Telford and he argued Telford’s contemporary’s bridge across the Menai Strait in North Wales was similar to his own plan. Anderson’s design included a roadway supported by chain cables, forged from iron bars, similar to Telford’s Menai Suspension Bridge.
A fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Anderson said he had had his proposal “in contemplation for a considerable time” and after “the most mature consideration of every point in which the matter can be viewed”. He
The Queensferry Crossing opened to traffic this morning after six years of construction at a cost of £1.35 billion.
These plans, drawn by little-known engineer James Anderson in 1818, look remarkably similar to the Queensferry Crossing.
proposed two different heights for the bridge, with the tallest one at 110ft above stream tides.
He said: “The erection of a bridge across the Forth, at Queensferry, is a projection that everyone who is acquainted with the situation must consider as a work of the greatest utility, indeed of the first national and commercial advantage that this part of the kingdom will admit of.
“On looking at the map of Scotland
and tracing out the high roads, and their destinations, the great importance of such an undertaking will readily appear to everyone.”
In the end, it was another 150 years before a suspension bridge was constructed at the spot, with the Forth Road Bridge opening in 1964. Corrosion in one of its main cables led to concerns it was no longer viable as the long-term main crossing of the Firth of Forth and the
Queensferry Crossing was commissioned.
Once the Queensferry Crossing is fully in use, public transport will remain on the Forth Road Bridge, while cars can use the new route.
As well as a series of events to mark the opening of the new crossing, its opening is also being celebrated with a special postmark that will appear on millions of items of stamped mail being handled from today until September 6.