Location type

Names and dates

Description

This stone built converted canal aqueduct crosses the White Cart Water between Hawkhead (to the east) and Paisley Canal (west) by means of a single 84 ft arch.

It is, it could be argued, the oldest railway carrying bridge in use in Scotland as it was designed by Thomas Telford in 1810 to carry the Glasgow and Ardrossan Canal.

The bridge parapets were reduced when the bridge was converted for railway use. The railway crosses the former aqueduct on a slightly oblique alignment compared with the course of the canal. Due to the meandering route of the canal it is almost on a north-south alignment. The line from Glasgow crosses the bridge going south before curving west to reach Saucel and Paisley Canal. The channel of the canal could, until the 1980s, be seen on the north side of the bridge's east end. It is still there, but now choked with trees.

A little to the east the railway was crossed by the Paisley and Barrhead District Railway before reaching the site of today's Hawkhead station. A single abutment of the former bridge over the line remains on the south side of the railway.

Tags

Aliases