About Dunkeld Bridge

Telford's Bridge at Dunkeld is one of the greatest civil engineering feats of the 19th century. The bridge measured 685ft (over 200m) with seven spans - a central one of 90ft (27.4m), two of 84ft (25m) two of 74ft (22.5m) and tow land spans of 20ft (6m). The spandrels (between the arches) are not filled with rubble stone but with internal longitudinal walls to take the trust of the arches without overloading the external spandrel walls. This arrangement was a feature of Telford's designs and has contributed to the durability of the bridge. With no sign of solid rock on the river bed , Telford could not drive timber piles into the rock, so to solve this problem, the foundation of the bridge piers were constructed on rafts of spruce and larch timber 5ft below the river bed.

Previously there were two ferries crossing the mighty Tay, one upstream from the Cathedral - the Inver Ferry, and the East Ferry Downstream of Little Dunkeld Church, but in 1766 six people drowned when the East Ferry capsized with thirteen passengers and four horses. The government instructed Thomas Telford to carry out a survey, and in 1802 he reported that a bridge could be built a little way above the East Ferry, but the Duke insisted that the design was moved westward to align with Atholl Street. Bridge Street was Constructed and an impressive entrance to Dunkeld was created.

In 1805 after a ceremony, Sir George Stewart, laird of the Murthly Estate, laid the foundation stone in the Duke of Atholl's absence. The Bridge was opened to the public in 1808.

The sandstone for the arches was quarried at Gellyburn on the Murthly Estate 10km to the SE of Dunkeld and the stone for the rubblework was quarried just to the west of Birnam.

The 4th Duke of Atholl met half the cost of the bridge (estimated at £15,000) on the understanding that he could recover the amount from tolls. The charges for crossing went from one halfpenny for a person on foot through to twopence for an unladen horse, fourpence when drawing a cart and eightpence for a carriage. Sheep and pigs were sixpence per score and cattle one shilling and eightpence per score. This amounted to tolls collected of about £750 rising to over £2000 per year in 1863.

The actual cost of construction rose to £34,000. The government contributed £7.000 leaving the Duke to recover £27,000 from tolls. It was hoped that the bridge would be toll-free within a few years of it's completion, but the public became increasingly disgruntled with the tolls and they protested - resulting in riots at the bridge, because they thought the Duke was using the money collected from tolls to fund the building of his new mansion house at Dunkeld. Tolls were paid until the bridge was taken over by the Country Roads Authority in 1879.

The Town Jail was situated under the bridge on the Dunkeld side, and the access is still visible.