The bridge replaced a ferry crossing first established in the
11th-century by Margaret, Queen Consort of King Malcolm III,
who founded a passenger service to transport pilgrims from
Edinburgh to Dunfermline Abbey and St Andrews
Nowadays the only pilgrims are those brave enough
to walk
across the bridge. It wobbles throughout
its 8,242 feet length!
It’s 150 feet from the bridge to this house directly under it.
The house was there first. It was built 63 years
before
the bridge opened
Another way of looking at the drop
The waters of the Forth
But it is no longer a crime to throw yourself from the bridge.
An estimated 1,000 people have done so. Very few survived.
‘Plunging from that height is like hitting a concrete wall’,
said a South Queensferry lifeboat man
Despite the notices, around 20 people a year commit suicide here.
The bridge is steadily deteriorating because of the heavy volume
of traffic – up to 60,000
vehicles a day on a busy weekend. It will
need to be replaced – at an estimated cost of £2billion. The
bridge
was intended to last 120 years…It won’t last 60.
All photographs Copyright Institute of Contemporary Scotland, 2010
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The holiday
edition
09.07.10-
02.08.10
No 282
Our favourite
places in Scotland
A selection of nominations
by SR writers and readers
[click here]
Faces of the
year…so far
A selection of
Bob Smith’s caricatures
[click here]
North to the
‘simmer dim’
R D Kernohan’s
summer journey to Orkney
and Shetland
[click here]
Daydreams
Francis O Young
Fragments of a life
[click here]
Ironing a sari
The July poem
Gerard Rochford
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here]
A surprise
from Islay
Bob Smith has completed
a new work and here it is
[click
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Next edition:
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