New Bridge (Ayr)

This article is about the New Bridge on the A719.
For other New Bridges, see Newbridge.

The New Bridge over the River Ayr

New Bridge is the lowest crossing of the River Ayr, located between Ayr's town centre and harbour. It carries the A719 on New Bridge Street, with the Auld Brig on Old Bridge Street lying a short distance upstream and now pedestrianised. The bridge has five stone arches, with all but the southern arch completely spanning water at high tide - there is a thin strip of riverbank normally left exposed on the south shore. The bridge is highly decorated, as befits a substantial crossing in an important town such as Ayr, and carries a wide roadway flanked by wide pavements between stone ornamental pierced parapets. From a distance, the five arches all appear to be of the same size and shape, but there is a slight rise in the roadway, peaking over the central arch, which suggests that in fact the central arch is a little larger than those flanking it.

The piers standing in the river are protected by rusticated semi-circular cutwaters, which appear to be a little larger on the upstream side. These give way to shallow pilasters at the arch springs, with ornamental capitals below a dog-tooth string course at roadway level. The smooth stonework of the parapets then rises above with pillars above the bridge piers supporting metal street lights, while the intervening sections are split into panels between small piers, each panel being pierced with four quatrefoil designs.

History

The New Bridge is no longer particularly new, but in fact this is the second New Bridge on the site. The first was built as long ago as 1789, following a competition in 1785. It was built because the Auld Brig upstream was no longer wide enough for the traffic that needed to cross it, certainly the roadway over the bridge is not wide enough for two carriages to pass. It was damaged by flooding in 1877 and hastily replaced by the current bridge, although this too was damaged by flooding in 1881 and had to be repaired and strengthened.