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!"