Dean Bridge

The Dean Bridge
Telford’s bridge carries the bulk of traffic from the city's West End to its north-west suburbs.
The Dean Bridge is difficult to view as a whole, but Telford's Lothian Bridge on the A68, also from 1831, is a smaller five-arched version of the same design.

The Dean Bridge spans the Water of Leith in the city of Edinburgh on the A90 road to Queensferry on the Firth of Forth. It carries the roadway, 447 feet (136 m) long and 39 feet (12 m) broad, on four arches rising 106 feet (32 m) above the river.[1] The bridge was one of the last major works before retirement of the bridge designer, civil engineer Thomas Telford, and was completed in 1831 when he was seventy-three years old.[2]

Before the bridge was built the river had been crossed since medieval times at a ford, later by a single-arch stone bridge near the same spot, at the foot of Bell's Brae in the Dean Village. The private Dean Gardens lie under the east side of the bridge on the north bank of the Water of Leith.[3]

  1. ^ H Coghill, Discovering The Water of Leith, John Donald 1988, ISBN 0 85976 227 0
  2. ^ Glover, Julian (2017). Man of iron : Thomas Telford and the building of Britain. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 339, 365. ISBN 9781408837467.
  3. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "The New Town Gardens (GDL00367)". Retrieved 12 April 2019.