From the archives: The construction of the Forth Bridge, 1873 - 1890

By Tom Lowe2023-03-17T07:49:00

The Builder makes an ascent up the “vast bones” of the half built bridge, the scale of which astonished the engineering world at the time

Below are three pieces published in The Builder charting the construction of the Forth Bridge. The first is a news item on some early proposals, the second a visit to the construction site and the third a reflection on the finished bridge. The vast structure, nearly 2.5km long, was one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history when it was completed, a point widely acknowledged at the time. One subsriber to The Builder wrote in to describe how it made classical edifices which the Victorians had obsessivley admired, like the Pantheon in Rome, “look like toys”.

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