Scottish Bridges: 20. Cambus O'May Footbridge

This will be the third and final of these Deeside suspension footbridges that I'll cover for now: there are more, but not in my old photo albums.

Like the nearby Polhollick Bridge, the bridge at Cambus O'May was built by James Abernethy & Co., a little later, in 1905. Both bridges were gifted to the public by a Mr Alexander Gordon. As at Polhollick, Louis Harper may have been involved in the design, as cited at the Harper Bridges website.

Two later Abernethy bridges in the same style were built at Charlestown of Aberlour, undated, and Invercauld, the latter in 1924.

The Cambus O'May span is a much more elegant structure than its cousin at Polhollick. It lacks the peculiar "ladder rungs" between the main cables, and the towers have a more pleasing appearance, largely down to the detailing of the crossframes and finials.

Although the bridge is Listed, it was largely reconstructed in 1988, replacing the riveted deck trusses with welded construction. A steeply stepped staircase on the north approach was removed at the same time (photos at RCAHMS and Bridgemeister show the former arrangement).

Further information:

• Bing maps
• Structurae
• British Listed Buildings
• RCAHMS
• Scotland's Places
• Bridgemeister
• Scottish Suspension Bridges (Hume, in The Archaeology of Industrial Scotland, 1977)
• The National Trust Book of Bridges (Richards, 1984)
• Highland Bridges (Nelson, 1990)
• Civil Engineering Heritage: Scotland Highlands and Islands (Paxton and Shipway, 2007)
• An Encyclopaedia of Britain's Bridges (McFetrich, 2010)