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Summary

Description

Sir Owen Williams (engineer) with Maxwell Ayrton (architect), dated 1926. 2-span shuttered-concrete girder bridge with deep canted abutments containing refuges, high parapet with polygonal openings and central concrete pier with open centre and triangular cutwaters rising to top of parapet. Inscription cast in centre of parapet, facing road. Each span measures 29.3m.

Statement of Special Interest

Findhorn Bridge is the largest, most expensive, and arguably most striking of a number of bridges constructed by Sir Owen Williams and Maxwell Ayrton along the route of the old A9 in the Highlands. The road deck is suspended from deep vierendeel girders, the form of which dictate the shape of the shuttered concrete arches that line the parapet. The ground on which the bridge was ill-suited to contain the thrusts of an arched bridge. While there are other methods of overcoming this difficulty, this bridge both solves the engineering problem and provides a monumental visual effect. The inscription reads: THIS BRIDGE WAS BUILT IN 1926 TO REPLACE THE BRIDGE BUILT BY THOMAS TELFORD IN 1833. The bridge is situated on the course of the old A9, just to the South of Tomatin.

Williams, one of the most celebrated engineers of the modern movement era of design, was commissioned to design this series of landmark bridges working with the architect Maxwell Ayrton. Designed and built between 1924 and 1928, the bridges combine imaginative aesthetics with innovative structural design in reinforced concrete. There were eight bridges by Williams on the A9, the others being two-arch bridges at Loch Alvie and Crubenmore, larger bridges at Dalnamein and over the Spey near Newtonmore, and a small single-span bridge also at Dalnamein (all listed seperately). Small bridges at Aviemore and Brora have been remodelled and remain unlisted.

References

Bibliography

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