Leith owes its very existence to the river that cuts through its midst, yet for much of its existence it was functionally separate parishes and burghs of North and South Leith. Until 1809 there was only one bridge between the two sides, the late 15th century Abbot’s or Bellenden Bridge. This had been built by Abbot Bellenden (no giggling at the back, Bellenden is the old Scots spelling of Ballantyne!) of Holyrood Abbey to link the lands of North Leith possessed by that institution on both river banks.

This bridge posed two problems to the prosperity and development of the town however. Firstly, it stopped any upstream progress of shipping. The river was at this time tidal and as there were no wet docks everything had to tie up in the confined basin of the river below the bridge. You can see from Clerk of Eldin’s image above just how wide the river was upstream of the bridge and therefore how much valuable port accommodation was out of reach. The second problem was the bridge was relatively far enough upstream so as to be inconvenient for crossing from North to South Leith. John Naish’s 1709 survey of Leith, the first accurate surveyed plan of the town, below, shows the bridge at letter E, just left of centre, and all the tidal basin space upstream of it that it blocked access to. It also gives an idea of how poorly located the bridge was for a town that was beginning to rapidly expand towards its north.

The solution to these problems were threefold. Firstly, remove the medieval bridge entirely. Secondly, build a new bridge further downstream, better located for the centre of mass of the town. Thirdly, make sure ships could pass through the bridge – this meant a drawbridge. The foundation stone for the first such bridge was laid on September 23rd 1788 by Lord Haddo, Grand Master Mason of Scotland, in a civic ceremony attended by the Magistracy of Edinburgh and Leith. This bridge, often referred to in older times as the Fishquay Bridge was located at the Coal Hill, at the western end of Tolbooth Wynd. It’s still there in a modernised form and is now known as the Sandport Place Bridge. It was built by Mr Stephen, who was also responsible for the steeples of St. Andrew’s Church on George Street and St. Cuthbert’s (West Kirk) in Edinburgh. It had three spans, those on each shore a tradtional masonry arch and the central span being a split bascule, where each half was on a hinge and could be raised open by a winch. The opening span was originally timber but was replaced in iron at least two occasions.

A bill for further harbour improvements of 1799 proposed another draw bridge further upstream yet, between Bernard Street and what is now Commercial Street. This second bridge was completed in January 1809 and was known variously as the Outer, Lower or New Drawbridge (the earlier bridge conversely being Inner, Upper or Old). I shall call it the Bernard Street Bridge, a later name, for clarity. As it was ready in time for both the construction of the Custom House in 1812 and the arrival of King George IV in Leith in 1822, we get clear views of it in illustrations commemorating both. From this we can see it is a relatively conventional 3-span masonry arch bridge, but with a split central opening span that appears to be constructed of laminated iron.

In 1818 another new bridge over the Water of Leith was built in Leith, the Junction Bridge which joins Great Junction Street to North Junction Street. This bridge was far enough upriver that only small, shallow craft could navigate, so did not need to open. This bridge is still there, much disfigured by later widening and strengthening works in reinforced concrete.

A third drawbridge was constructed further downstream in 1859, on the north side of the Custom House, to connect the dock railway branches on the west and east side of the river. This was a relatively slender, iron structure supported on masonry piers. Notice in the picture below just how low the water level is; there were no dock gates at this time and so the river remained strongly tidal; the range here is over 6 metres, so there is a really noticeable drop between high and low tides!

In 1898 the Bernard Street Bridge had to be replaced to allow the (then) horse-drawn tramway of the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company to connect branches on both sides of the river. This was something that had been proposed as early as 1877 and the expense was jointly shared between the Tramway, the Leith Corporation and the Leith Dock Commission. To accommodate a wider and longer opening span, the new bridge was actually a swing bridge, although it still seems to have been referred to as the Drawbridge. It was built by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. on the Tyne. In October 1904, the Leith Corporation exercised its rights to buy the Edinburgh Street Tramways routes within its boundaries, which it did for £60,000, and in February the following year it set about electrifying the whole system.

The last and trickiest part of this project was how to carry the electric wires across the opening bridge at Bernard Street. The opening action of the existing bridge could not be altered and so the electrification scheme had to work around that; the solution was quite ingenious and merits further description. The electric wires were carried across the bridge supported on three, arched gantries.

Where the bridge wires met the wires from Bernard and Commercial streets, there were spring-loaded “forks” which kept an electrical contact between them when the bridge was closed. You can see this connection on the left of the below image, the dark structure hanging down from the left hand gantry.

The first stage of the bridge opening was that it tilted, under hydraulic power) on its pivot point (which was off-centre, close to the Bernard Street bank of the river). This action lifted the bridge wires up and out of their connection at the Commercial Street side (green arrows) and dropped them out at the Bernard Street side (orange arrows). This disconnection automatically disconnected the overhead current on the approaches to the bridge, meaning that any approaching tram would have no traction power to accidentally drive into the river if the bridge was open. It also opened catch points as a fail safe, meaning if a tram were to somehow roll towards the open bridge, it would be redirected to the side and derailed, rather than running into the river.

With the overhead wires disconnected and trams safe from running into the water, the bridge could begin to swing open under hydraulic power. Because it was the longer (and therefore heavier) part of the span that lifted up, if the hydraulic power were to fail, the deck would “fail safe” in a shut position.

The bridge swung until it had traversed 90 degrees, with its deck now sitting adjacent to the Shore (sides shown below in white). Ships could now pass through the open span (blue arrow). The timber decking structure that supported the open bridge also included a capstan and fairleads to help haul and guide ships through the span quickly, to minimise disruption caused by its opening.

The electrification was completed on November 10th 1905 with a trial run, and after a Board of Trade inspection it opened to passenger service on November 21st.

The bridge deck was always relatively lightweight, it had a weight limit of 12 tons and a speed limit of 10mph for vehicles. As its deck was steel, this caused a skid risk and therefore there was a central fence to avoid sliding into oncoming traffic, precluding wider vehicles from passing. As this prevented larger lorries to use it, and as it was a key route for dock traffic, it had already been decided before the trams were withdrawn in November 1956, that it would be completely rebuilt as a fixed bridge it. On May 1st 1955, the Leith Dock Commission ceased to open the Bernard Street Bridge or the Upper Drawbridge at Tolbooth Wynd due to a downturn in traffic needing to use the upper quays of the old port. This prevented all but small craft from navigating the river.

At Bernard Street, the reconstruction commenced in 1960 with the spans of the deck removed and replaced with four 25-ton reinforced concrete beams. It can be seen in the image below that the contractors laid a light railway to run materials over the bridge during the works. The new carriageway was twice as wide as the previous one and the total width of the bridge increased from 37 feet to 61 feet. All the old masonry was replaced, by three pairs of pre-cast concrete arches weighing 69 tons each. The new bridge was officially opened on 19th May 1961 at a cost of £43,000, with £31,000 covered by the Scottish Home Department and the Leith Dock Commission and the remainder by the Corporation.

The obstruction to navigation posed by the Bernard Street Bridge was made almost complete on May 28th 1969 when a £7m scheme to install a series of sea locks to close off the entire Leith Docks basin to the tide was commissioned. These gates have kept the dock basin, and therefore the basin of the Water of Leith, permanently flooded at a high tide level ever since, and the clearance under the arches of the bridge is a matter of inches. This has sadly made this part of the historic port very sterile. It is meaningfully devoid of wildlife, as it has an accumulation of nearly 6m of sediment in the basin and no tidal action to encourage feeding patterns, and the watercraft on which the town’s fortunes were built are entirely missing.

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