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Bridges of the Forth 143
been incorporated in a girder bridge, and while main road traffic has been
diverted, it still is the road access to the station. The Stirling Arms Hotel at the
bridge used to be called the Head Inn. A plaque there says that Robert Burns
accepted the post of exciseman there in 1796, but did not take it up. The A9
crosses the Allan by a ferro-concrete bridge of the late forties, one of the last
improvements to the A9 in the first phase. Dunblane is now fairly recently
by-passed in the second phase of A9 upgrading. A concrete footbridge, called
the ‘Fairy Bridge’, is situated above the cathedral.
Cromlix Bridge, yet another eighteenth century stone bridge, crosses the
Allan at Kinbuck, and is picturesquely situated amid green banks at a sharp
bend in the road to Braco.
At Braco two bridges of considerable interest cross the Knaik within a few
metres of one another. The older of the two is one of many in Scotland referred
to as the ‘Roman Bridge’ and, as it is situated in the shadow of the remarkable
Roman Camp of Ardoch, it has more claim to the soubriquet than any of the
others, but, like them it is of much later date. It is said to have been erected in
1430 by the Bishop of Dunblane who also erected a bridge over the Machany
Water near Muthill, still called the Bishop’s Bridge. Although the bridge at
Ardoch was only six feet wide the erection of these two bridges at so early a
date is a testimony to the importance of the route from Stirling to Crieff, and
thence to Inverness.
Indeed Wade made the road beyond Crieff to Dalnacardoch while the
improvement of the stretch between Stirling and Crieff was the first road work
undertaken by his successor, Caulfeild in 1741-2. It may have been at this time
that an addition of three and a half feet was made to the old bridge, an addition
which fell into the river in 1896. In any case there was much correspondence
about a bridge ‘over the Allan’ which, from topographical evidence, was
probably this bridge as there is a reference to a ‘steep ascent of the Bridge of
Allan near Ardoch.’ Caulfeild rebuilt a bridge there in 1751. The newer bridge
also proved problematic. It was begun in 1861, but the centering collapsed and
the bridge was only completed in 1862.
Bridges of the Teith
The Teith is a fast-flowing stream. On it, at Deanston, one of the most
considerable water-driven cotton mills in Scotland was established in 1785.
Below them is the famous Brig o’ Teith with its inscription “In the Year of God
1535 founded was this bridge by Robert Spittal, tailor to the most noble Princess
Margaret, spouse to James IV”. There is a boldly emblazoned pair of scissors en
saltier symbolising the fact Spittal, a notable benefactor, was a tailor:
Its erection by Spittal, it is popularly believed, was owing to the avarice and
disobliging conduct of one who kept the ferry at this point. Spittal had occasion to
arrive here with a view to crossing the river, when he discovered he had either lost
or forgotten his purse. Intimating the circumstances to the ferryman, he gruffly
refused to allow him the use of his boat, a course which subjected Spittal to
considerable inconvenience. But that no other person should be so circumstanced,