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Islay McLeod's Scotland
The drop
Life and death on the bridge
The Forth Road Bridge was opened in September 1964. It took
six years to build. Seven lives were lost during its construction
The bridge contains 39,000 tonnes of steel and
115,000 cubic metres of concrete
The bridge replaced a ferry crossing first established in the
11th-century by Margaret, Queen Consort of King Malcolm III,
who founded a passenger service to transport pilgrims from
Edinburgh to Dunfermline Abbey and St Andrews
Nowadays the only pilgrims are those brave enough
to walk
across the bridge. It wobbles throughout
its 8,242 feet length!
It's 150 feet from the bridge to this house directly under it.
The house was there first. It was built 63 years
before
the bridge opened
Another way of looking at the drop
The waters of the Forth
But it is no longer a crime to throw yourself from the bridge.
An estimated 1,000 people have done so. Very few survived.
'Plunging from that height is like hitting a concrete wall',
said a South Queensferry lifeboat man
Despite the notices, around 20 people a year commit suicide here.
The bridge is steadily deteriorating because of the heavy volume
of traffic – up to 60,000
vehicles a day on a busy weekend. It will
need to be replaced – at an estimated cost of £2billion. The
bridge
was intended to last 120 years...It won't last 60.
All photographs Copyright Institute of Contemporary Scotland, 2010
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