New Bridge

The elegant New Bridge connects New Bridge Street in Ayr with Main Street in Newton on Ayr across the River Ayr in South Ayrshire. Built on the site of a former ford, it replaced an earlier 'New Bridge' of 1789 which was demolished in 1877 there having been fears about its safety following a flood. The current structure comprises five segmental arches in red sandstone with a decorated granite parapet, corbelled out on the structure below. The bridge features prominent rounded cutwaters. It was the work of Blyth & Cunningham of Edinburgh, completed in 1879 at a cost of £15,000.

Robert Burns (1759-96) predicted the demise of the first 'new bridge' in his poem The Brigs o' Ayr, giving words to the Auld Brig, which said of its new pretender "I'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn!"


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