Skulferatu #116 - Bilston Glen Viaduct, Loanhead, Midlothian

 

I do love wandering around bits of our industrial past, whether that be an old railway, a derelict factory, old mineworks or a repurposed power station.  On a stroll from Roslin to the outskirts of Edinburgh, I walked over a piece of our industrial heritage – Bilston Glen Viaduct, or as locals refer to it, the Bilston Climbing Frame.  Wandering down a steep and narrow path under the viaduct I could see why it had acquired that name with the criss-crossing of the iron lattice work underneath.

 

Bollards by the viaduct

 

Path across the viaduct

 

Wooded area of Bilston Glen

 

Underneath the viaduct

 

The criss-crossing iron lattice work underneath the viaduct

 

View of the viaduct

 

View of the viaduct from Bilston Glen

 

Bilston Glen Viaduct is an old iron railway bridge above the steep gorge of Bilston Glen. The Edinburgh, Loanhead and Roslin Railway used to run across it.  This railway carried coal and ironstone from mines at Penicuik, Roslin, Bilston, Loanhead and Gilmerton.  It also carried passengers to Roslin.

 

The viaduct was built in 1892, and replaced an earlier one built at the same spot in the 1870s.  It appears that there had been concerns about the earlier bridge due to movements of the ground caused by the mineworks.  Concerns were also raised about the design of that bridge, as it had been designed by Sir Thomas Bouch, the designer of the infamous Tay Bridge that had collapsed in 1879.

 

Bilston Glen Viaduct was built with a single deep wrought iron span supported on low piers with granite abutments at each end to support it.  The separate pieces of the bridge were all made in Glasgow and then brought out to the site where the bridge was then assembled.  As the viaduct is made of iron it expands and contracts in the heat.  On a hot summer’s day, it could be up to 2 ½ inches longer than it was on a cold winter’s day.  To avoid this damaging the supports, the bridge was fitted with expansion mountings.  These allow the bridge to move. 

 

 In 1969 the section of the railway that ran over the viaduct was closed.  In 1999 restoration work was carried out on the viaduct and it opened again as part of the walkway that follows the old railway line.

 

While wandering around under the viaduct, I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the granite stonework of the abutments supporting it.

 

Skulferatu #116

 

Skulferatu #116 in a gap in the granite stonework

 

Skulferatu #116 in a gap in the granite stonework

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #116

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.87089

Longitude -3.150976

 

what3words: herb.windmill.widen

 

I used the following sources for information on Bilston Glen Viaduct –

 

Tourist Information Board at site

 

Canmore

Bilston Viaduct | Canmore

 

Edinburgh and Lothians: Exploring the Lost Railways

Alasdair Wham

2006

 

Skulferatu #115 - Gabriel's Pier, Gabriel's Wharf, Southbank, London

 

On yet another of the hottest days of the year, I was on a short stay over in London before heading back home.  So, what to do in that heat?  Well, I did the most sensible thing I could do, and as usual, went out in it.  As I was staying near to the Thames, and the tide was low, I thought I’d make my way there and wander along by the shores of the river to do a bit of mudlarking.

 

I wandered along the white hot pavements by Waterloo, and then cut through the back streets until I arrived at Gabriel’s Wharf.  There I made my way past the trendy, overpriced coffee shops and eateries, to a set of stairs that led me down onto a sandy beach by the Thames.

 

Busy people at Gabriel’s Wharf

 

Gabriel’s Pier and the shoreline along the Thames

 

Gabriel’s Pier and a bit of beach

 

This little bit of beach was busy with sunbathers and lots of children who were swimming in the brown, swirling waters of the river.  Though I was wilting in the heat I wasn’t going to join them in the cool water, as I remembered the stories of old about how dirty the Thames was.  There was one in particular about a passenger boat that sank sometime in the eighteenth century.  The story goes that of the hundred or so passengers on the boat, around twenty survivors were pulled from the river.  Within a week they had all died, poisoned by the water they had ingested while in the Thames.  The story, like many, may not be true, but the river was once horribly polluted and dirty, and even though it has now been cleaned up massively, you wouldn’t catch me swimming in it.

 

Leaving the beach area, I walked under Gabriel’s Pier and followed the shoreline along the Southbank, past the OXO building and towards Blackfriars Bridge.  Scraping at the stone and mud with my feet I found a few clay pipe stems and bowls, and a couple of small stones that had been cut into a circular shape with a whole drilled in the middle.  What they were I had no idea, but stuck them into my pocket anyway.

 

Shoreline along the Thames

 

Finding a relatively dry outcrop of rocks I sat down to watch life on the river.  Tourist boats sped past whipping the shoreline with rough waves, a couple of barges ambled by, and a group of a dozen or so canoeists paddled along, bouncing merrily in the waves of the passing boats.  Seagulls soared over, screeching, and gabbling in the way that seagulls do, and up above on the walkways around the shore was the distant mumble of the thousands of people out and about in the hot, hot sun.

 

After daydreaming for a while on my seat of rock, I walked back along the shore to Gabriel’s Pier, which like Gabriel’s Wharf, is named after Christopher Gabriel, whose family business was based here from the 1770s until 1919. 

 

Gabriel’s Pier

 

Under the pier

 

In a tangled wooden thing that had been fixed between the struts of the pier, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk.

 

Skulferatu #115

 

Skulferatu #115 in a tangled wooden thing

 

Skulferatu #115 in a tangled wooden thing

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #115

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.508557

Longitude -0.109673

 

what3words: until.swaps.wiped