The North Bridge

The North Bridge as we know it, has connected Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns since 1897. However, the current North Bridge is not the first.

In the mid-1700s, the then Lord Provost George Drummond was determined to turn Edinburgh into a modern metropolis. Lord Drummond commissioned architect William Mylne to build a bridge fit for a City of Enlightenment. The challenging project would cost the Council £10,140. Before construction work could begin, parts of the Nor Loch had to be drained. In 1765, after two years of building work, the bridge opened to pedestrians. The bridge consisted of three main arches and several smaller ones and measured 343 metres in total.

Unfortunately, four years later in 1769, a large part of the bridge collapsed killing five people. The bridge was repaired, costing the council more than the original project, and reopened in 1772. Although, it’s reported many people were wary of using the bridge after the previous collapse.

Construction of a new bridge took place between 1894 and 1897, standing in the same spot as the first, but built to accommodate Waverley Station beneath its arches. This, the current North Bridge, is 160m long and has three spans of arched girders which are each 53m in length. Cunningham, Blyth & Westland were the engineers for the contractors, Sir William Arrol & Co. Sir William Arrol & Co. undertook many civil engineering projects and built some of the most famous bridges in the UK, including the Forth Rail Bridge. City Architect, Robert Morham was the designer of the bridge elevations. The foundation stone was laid on 25 May 1896 by Lord Provost Andrew McDonald and it opened in 1897.

The bridge features a war memorial by William Birnie Rhind in memory of soldiers of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers killed in campaigns between 1897 and 1902.

The North Bridge redevelopment gave The Scotsman newspaper an opportunity to build a magnificent new headquarters. The newspaper acquired the prestigious site at the south end of the bridge and created a state-of-the-art building replacing the meat markets, inns, oyster shops and coffee houses which had occupied the site.

The last major refurbishment works on the bridge were undertaken in 1933. In the early 1990s, the decorative facings were painted and new parapets were installed with decorative covers of spheroidal cast iron.
In March 2018, the Council agreed to invest in refurbishing the structure after inspections between 2014 and 2017 identified various defects, commissioning Balfour Beatty to carry out the work. Complex scaffolding was required. Traditional scaffolding relies on ground support, but due to the interface with the railway station and the low capacity of the roof, scaffolding had to be suspended from the bridge itself. This required multiple stages of design and checks. Although the access was challenging, it enabled thorough inspections which revealed the need for more extensive repairs than initially anticipated. Complex scaffolding was installed to gain access to areas not accessed for 125 years.

As work progressed, it became clear that more repairs would be required than initially anticipated. This has included structural steelwork repairs, grit blasting and repainting of the structural steel works, repairs to the cast iron facades, asbestos removal and the restoration and repair to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Memorial. Once completed, the works will extend the lifespan of the bridge and remove the need for further maintenance work for years to come. The refurbishment work is now expected to be completed winter 2025.

We’re grateful to Balfour Beatty for contributing to our digital collections many fascinating pictures documenting the current programme of repair works which we’re able to share with you in this exhibition. These photos give an unrivalled view of the challenges faced and the endeavours to maintain the iconic North Bridge for decades to come.