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SOUTH BRIDGE |
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Essay by Julian.Small. Photographs and 3D computer visualisations by Sandy Kinghorn. |
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After the completion of Edinburghs North Bridge in 1772,1 the next stage in the great series of civic improvements which transformed the city during the late eighteenth century was the construction of a further bridge across the ravine of the Cowgate to the south of the ridge on which the Old Town of Edinburgh was built. Although access to the city was easier from the south than from the north, and the sides of the Cowgate valley less precipitous than the steep slopes on the north, travellers from the south still faced a difficult entry into the city. Just as importantly, the new southern suburbs, lying beyond the limits of the Royalty (the city boundaries), were expanding. George Square was as fashionable as the New Town, and it inhabitants just as wealthy, and yet they paid no taxes to the city. Of more serious concern was the possibility that the difficulty of access from these southern suburbs to the High Street might lead to the development of a second shopping area in the suburbs,2 outwith the control of the Council and of the Incorporations of the various crafts. The construction of the South Bridge, and the benefits it was to bring to them, was to justify the future inclusion of these suburbs in assessments for the Cess, a land or property tax, even if they were not formally brought under the citys authority in other ways for some time.3
The convenience of the bridge for the inhabitants of the southern
suburbs was undisputed, but it was also to form one of the main
entries to the city for travellers from the south, not least
travellers from London. The whole concept of the bridge was
impressive, but it was necessary also that the structure should
impress. That view seems to have been fairly universal amongst
those concerned with the realisation of the project, and it
particularly infected Robert Adam.
A bridge over the Cowgate had been suggested in the pamphlet which launched the civic rebuilding of Edinburgh, the Proposals for carrying on certain public works in the city of Edinburgh, published in 1752, and a scheme suggested in 1775 had proved abortive,4 not least because of the difficulties in funding the proposals at a time when capital was scarce because of the war in America. Only with the conclusion of the American War of Independence in 1783 could serious consideration be given to such a project. The years after the conclusion of the war were a time of boom in the building industry in Britain, not only in Edinburgh but also in English provincial cities such as Bristol and Bath, in both of which many projects date from this time.5
The time was ripe when the banker James Hunter Blair became Lord
Provost of Edinburgh in 1784, and it is to him more than anyone else
that construction of the bridge is due.6
It was Hunter Blair who concluded that the bridge could be built
without cost to the public purse. Property along the line of
the bridge was to be acquired by compulsory purchase at its existing
value, and the areas alongside the bridge would be sold for the
erection of modern tenements and shops. The difference between
the existing value of the property and its enhanced value would
finance the bridges construction, estimated at
£8,600. This required an Act of Parliament, which was
passed in May 1785. As well as authorising the project and
granting the powers of compulsory purchase, it set up a Board of
Trustees to organise the construction of the bridge. This
allowed a broader range of interests to be represented than just
those of the City Council. The Act explicitly linked the
construction of the new bridge and the reconstruction of the
buildings of Edinburgh University,
which was urgently required, by making the Trustees responsible for
both. Although, ultimately, a different set of Trustees took
responsibility for the Universitys reconstruction, this was to
form the next project in the great rebuilding of Edinburgh, and the
terms of the 1785 Act made this explicit.
There are a number of reasons why Adam was particularly eager to be
awarded this commission. In the first place, he had been
through a relatively lean period in his practice. Although even
after the problems he had had with The Adelphi development in London
he had remained one of the most fashionable architects in the
country, with a large number of projects in hand, the outbreak of the
American War of Independence in 1776 had led to a general falling-off
in the number of building projects, and the early 1780s, in
particular, had produced relatively few new commissions.8
The situation was starting to change, and the final seven years of
Adams life were to prove very productive ones, but to be asked
to produce designs for a project on the scale of South Bridge would
be considered a great opportunity by any architect - particularly one
who, like Adam, constantly hankered after the opportunity to design
on a monumental scale. The Adelphi had provided one opportunity
to design a major piece of urban planning, and Edinburghs South
Bridge must have appeared another, especially since the vista
along it would terminate in the Register
House which Adam had designed in 1771 and which was now nearing
completion. In addition, if this scheme was to be followed by
the reconstruction of the University
buildings, the architect responsible for the first would be in a good
position to take charge of the second. Finally, the fact that
the scheme would be built in his home town of Edinburgh must have
increased its attractiveness.
We have no way of telling how much time Adam devoted to preparing his
South Bridge scheme, but for such a large project (the main blocks
alone are over one hundred yards long) it must have been
considerable, quite apart from that of his staff. He sent a
letter to the Lord Provost on 25th June 1785,11
apologising for the delay in dispatching his designs. His
architectural draughtsman was ill, and was having to be replaced (the
employment of a new draughtsman unused to Adams ways may
explain certain inconsistencies in details between the various
plans). The plans12
were finally sent to Edinburgh on 14th July, with a letter in which
Adam explained the various features of the scheme.
Despite the lack of architect or design, estimates for building the
bridge were presented to the Trustees at their meeting, and at a
further meeting on 14th July 1785 the contract was awarded to
Alexander Laing, who had stated that "As there is no plan,
elevation or section of the bridge produced, besides the foundations
must be uncertain..." he had had to present his estimate in
terms of his prices per yard or per foot for various types of masonry.17
It is unclear what - if any - role Laing was to play in the design
of the bridge, because although it is Robert Kay who is usually
credited with being the designer, the section included in his
published survey, besides being drawn on a very small scale, shows
only sixteen arches as opposed to the nineteen which were built.
None of the surviving drawings is signed, and although the
Trustees records variously refer to Kay as their surveyor,
draughtsman or inspector, both James Brown and John Baxter - both of
them architect-contractors in Edinburgh - also played some role in
the design process.18
It was not until after the Trustees meeting on 8th February 1786, nearly seven months after they had been sent up from London, that James Hunter Blair wrote to Adam, rejecting his designs. Although there had been widespread admiration of his proposals, he told Adam, the Trustees were not authorised by the Act of Parliament to agree to designs "in which the ornamental [sic.] required to be executed shall in any material degree diminish the value of the ground lots at a public sale."20 He asserted that Adams pleas for a more ornamental design for the arch crossing the Cowgate were a needless extravagance since it would be seen only by carters. Since the Trustees intended "to oblige the Feuars to build by a plan of uniform ashler fronts similar to the neatest houses of that kind in the New Town," neither was there any requirement for the street facades which Adam had designed. He concluded by informing Adam that his involvement with the project was ended and asked him to send the bill for his work to date.
Adams meetings with the Trustees in both London and Edinburgh were successful, but the Lord Provost was not convinced and Adam complained of a lack of co-operation from those in charge of the project, in particular that Hunter Blair had written from London ordering that work on the Cowgate arch should continue. Although many of Adams criticisms of the scheme were accepted, it was not he who was asked to rectify them but those already in charge. Eventually, in October 1786, after further attempts to counter Hunter Blairs obstructive tactics, Adam accepted his defeat and submitted his bill, as the Lord Provost had instructed in the previous February.
Robert Kay and James Brown went on to complete the South Bridge,
albeit taking on board some of Adams criticisms, particularly
with regard to the alignment of the roads around the Tron
Church. It was probably also Adams example that led Kay
to produce unified designs for the terraces of buildings lining the
bridge, although he was instructed to consult another Edinburgh
architect, John Baxter, in doing so.23
Each terrace contains ten houses, four of them topped by rather
gawky pediments, but allowing a repeating pattern with every third
house accented. The terraces are of different depths, and the
end facades of the blocks - one of four bays and one of three at the
elevations facing on to Cowgate - also possess pediments, set at a
slightly higher level so as to avoid the difficulty of turning a
corner on the ends of two pediments. The ground floors were
designed with banded quoins to the pedimented houses and arched
openings throughout the length of the elevation (these have been
almost totally swept away and replaced by modern shopfronts), the
upper floors with plain quoins in place of the banded and plain
rectangular windows. The facades of the buildings facing on to
the square around the Tron are, as in Adams scheme, a little
more elaborate than those lining the Bridge, with the end elevations
of the blocks (facing on to the High Street) given a fluted frieze
with paterae - a motif which in stylistic terms is pure Robert Adam,
and can be seen on the facade of Register
House, as well as occurring in his designs for South Bridge
itself. In one sense, no greater tribute could be given to an architect.
Kays designs are far more limited in scope than
Adams. Other than the two main terraced blocks lining the
bridge to the north of Cowgate, Kay limited himself to designing
buildings to surround the square being formed around the Tron Church,
Hunter Square. Even here, his intentions were never fulfilled
because another design was adopted for one of the buildings on the
west side. Adams more ambitious scheme proposed designs
for buildings to line the whole of the route of the bridge and road
between the Tron Church, on the High Street, and its junction with
Nicolson Street. Adams southernmost building on the east
side of the new road would have stood on the adjacent site to the Riding
House he had designed over twenty years earlier. As well
as the terraces of shops and houses, Adam designed an ornamental
screen to front Adam Square (the work of his brother John), an inn
for the reception of travellers, a new suite of Assembly Rooms, a
crescent of houses on the east end of the University garden, now on
the other side of the road from the University itself, and - mindful
of the fact that the South Bridge Trustees were, by the Act of
Parliament which established them, also charged with the rebuilding
of the University - a new
front and entrance for the University itself. These
buildings were all designed in pairs, facing one another across the
new street, and each pair of buildings along the southern part of the
road was designed to complement one another.
Not all of the drawings include a scale, and there are certain other
discrepancies between different drawings, some of which may be due to
the inexperienced draughtsman whom Adam had to employ at the
time. However, it is not unknown for Adams designs to
have been executed in a very different manner to the way the
surviving drawings suggest (the Riding House is a good example of
this), and many examples are known of projects - even amongst those
supervised directly by Adam and his firm - where there are more minor
departures from the original designs.28
Robert Adam would undoubtedly have been able to reconcile these
discrepancies, and had it been built we would have had in the South
Bridge a masterpiece of urban planning from an architect whom his
contemporaries considered to be particularly skilled in this
field. Unfortunately, the South Bridge Trustees, particularly
James Hunter Blair, did not have the vision to appreciate that the
magnificent entry to the city of Edinburgh which Adam proposed would
have welcomed visitors far more effectively than the bare, bald
buildings which they decided should be built, popular success though
that became. If Hunter Blair was the driving force behind the
scheme and must be assigned the credit for its construction, he was
also responsible for the frustration of Robert Adams efforts to
create a magnificent piece of urban architecture worthy of
Edinburghs role as Scotlands capital.
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interactive multimedia catalog
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Published
by Cadking Design Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland - Copyright © Cadking
Design 1997-2001 |
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