South Bridge

About

South Bridge is a road bridge and street in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland, between the High Street, where it meets the North Bridge, to Nicolson Street at the south. It forms a continuous roadway over the steep valley scoured parallel to the High Street when the crag and tail landscape of the city was formed. The bridge dips down from the High Street to the Cowgate (the roadway along the bottom of the valley), which runs under the largest arch of the bridge, before climbing back up to its terminus at Nicolson Street.

The concept of the bridge was raised in 1784 by James Hunter Blair in his capacity as Lord Provost of Edinburgh, as a logical southward extension of the pre-existing North Bridge, which connected Edinburgh's Old Town to its New Town. The southward bridge, set on the same alignment, was to improve connection to the southward land, and spanned over the Cowgate. The works necessitated the loss of many buildings including the old Edinburgh Poultry Market.

The bridge was designed by Robert Kay and built by Alexander Laing. The South Bridge Act 1785 was passed in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 21 April 1785 and in 1789 taxes were raised to fund the South...