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This web site documents and celebrates the project to stabilise
and preserve three 18th century bridges on a military road on
the Candacraig Estate in Aberdeenshire. The Project was started
in the late 1990s under the auspices of Gordon Enterprise Trust
(now amalgamated into Enterprise
North East Trust) involving several funding partners and advisors,
see links & credits.
the total cost of the project being about £230,000.
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Click on the hotspot to see a large scale map
of the bridges' location |
Moving A Bridge
On 15th November 1999, a small but
very unusual engineering feat was performed on a centuries old
bridge in The Highlands of Scotland. Built under the command of
Major William Caulfeild, it had withstood nearly 250 years of
floods and the harsh winter weather but slowly the foundations
on one bank had been moved nearly one metre downstream, bending
the rigid stone structure along its length – and yet it
had stood, a tribute to the work of the original builders. The
bridge needed to be restored. One might think that this movement
would have inevitably destroyed it, but it was not taken down
and rebuilt. Instead, Peter Stephen & Partners, the consultant
engineers, jacked up the bridge and moved it bodily back into
position! (see
technical paper).
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The bridge is one of three being restored along the line of a
road built by the British army in the 18th century. It has been
an expensive operation but the historic interest of these bridges
lies in more than just their physical structure!
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The terrain traversed by the military road,
click to enlarge
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Who Passed This Way?
Ancient bridges are portals of history. If, over
the centuries, you were able to watch who passed over the bridges
or forded the streams close by to where they stand, and see the
“tramp of time”, the people would tell you a story.
It would be a story of what happened here and in the wider Scotland;
stories of historical changes similar to those in many other parts
of the world; in distant history and happening today in South
America, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. What do these stories tell
you about your history?
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