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Bridges of the Forth 139
passed by the Miller concrete bridge built some two years earlier but not
connected to the road – part of the A907 ‘improvement’ debacle!
The Bannock Burn joins the Forth almost opposite the Devon, It has three
notable bridges, one ‘new’ by Telford, another ‘old’ built by the local benefactor
Robert Spittal whose bridge at Doune is discussed below. Spittal may have also
financed the bridge at Tullibody. Higher up the Bannock Burn, a delightful
mountain stream of great interest throughout its course, there is another old
stone bridge at Chartershall dating from 1747.
Bridges of the Upper Forth – Alloa
All three of the bridges at Queensferry and Kincardine are relatively recent;
further upstream The Old Stirling Bridge deserves all the attention it has had.
It was, after all, the Forth Bridge for several hundreds of years. As Alexander
Smith put it in A Summer in Skye, “Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands
and Lowlands together”. It is one of the oldest and finest stone bridges in
Britain. What makes it more interesting than some others is its strategic
importance:
The Old Bridge of Stirling which will be readily distinguished from its modern
neighbours, existed long before there was any bridge upon the Tay, or any other
stone bridge over the Forth, and it was thus absolutely the gate between the north
and the south of Scotland.
Black’s Guide 1889
The old bridge features in Kidnapped:
“The bridge is close under the castle hill, an old, high, narrow bridge with
pinnacles along the parapets; and you may conceive with how much interest I
looked upon it, not only as a place famous in history, but as the very doors of
salvation for Alan and myself. The moon was not yet up when we came there; a
few lights shone along the front of the fortress, and lower down a fewer lighted
windows in the town; but it was all mighty still, and there seemed to be no guard
upon the passage.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
What is remarkable is that the old Stirling Bridge is still there, exactly as
Stevenson described it. As early as 1831 it was not up to its road task, and it was
replaced by Robert Stevenson’s elegant road bridge. Stirling Bridge remains,
more or less as it was – strengthened and reinforced, of course – and is in use
as a footbridge, with its appearance much as it ever was. It featured in the
‘rebellion’ of 1745, when General Blakeney ordered the taking down of the arch
nearest the town to defend it:
When Charles was passing through St Ninians, Cumberland was only a mile or
two away at Falkirk. It was the missing arch that brought Cumberland to a halt
and gave Charles time to withdraw his men over the Ford of Frew. What
Cumberland had to say to Blakeney is mercifully forgotten!
Wm T. Palmer The Verge of the Scottish Highlands 1947
The Battle of Stirling Bridge of 11th September 1297 probably took place at
a wooden bridge just upstream of the old brig. This famous victory for the Scots