History

1700’s. In the mid 1700s the need for a road crossing of the Queensferry Passage was discussed seriously for the first time. Numerous plans to bridge the Firth of Forth were dreamed up, developed and discarded throughout the 18th century.

1705.

1810. Responsibility for the ferry passage had been transferred from the various individuals into the hands of a Board of Trustees in 1810. They ordered improvements to the service and to the various landing places on each side of the Firth to cater for the ever increasing number of passengers and vehicles. As early as 1929 a report on the possibility of a road crossing was produced.

1811. A report dated 15 May, 1811 indicated the volume of traffic using the ferry over the course of the preceding year. In the space of 12 months, more than 83,000 people, almost 6,000 carts and carriages and over 44,000 animals risked a drenching (even death) by taking to the treacherous waters on the boats.

1817. The Harbour Light Tower was built in 1817 by Robert Stevenson as a key part of the Queensferry Passage across the Forth. Up until then, the Signal House was used by boats as an aid to navigation. Ferries berthed both at the Town Pier and at the Battery Pier (now beneath the Forth Bridge).

1817. Plans for a chain bridge across the Firth of Forth were drawn up in 1817 by Edinburgh civil engineer and land surveyor James Anderson. The unrealistic design was promptly discarded.

1821. Steam power came to the Firth of Forth in 1821 with the launch of the paddleboat Queen Margaret. Although her paddles prevented the boat from taking wheeled traffic on board from the pier, she became a popular choice for foot passengers seeking a more reliable means of crossing the estuary than sail power.

1828. To accommodate the deeper draughts of the new, larger steam-powered ferries, Thomas Telford extended Town Pier in 1828 to its present length. The Railway Pier, on the far side of West Bay, was the terminus of the new Dunfermline-North Queensferry Railway which opened in 1877. The Railway Pier was used as one of the northern ferry terminals from 1877 to 1890, and in 1920 it replaced the old Town Pier.

1866. The first rail link, a branch line from Ratho, reached South Queensferry. However the industrial expansion of the Victorian period had little impact. Until, that is, the year 1883, when the Forth Rail Bridge and the demands of it’s 3000 workforce brought renewed prosperity.

1879. The tragic collapse of Thomas Bouch’s Tay Bridge, a major disaster that caused more than 70 railway passengers to lose their lives, put a dramatic halt to construction of the Bouch-designed Forth railway crossing, which had only recently begun.

1883. Work on a bridge for rail traffic eventually began, under the supervision of Benjamin Baker and John Fowler. The construction of the bridge would alter life in North Queensferry drastically. At its peak, the construction of the bridge employed over 4,000 men. In the same year that the building of the redesigned Forth Bridge began, construction of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge (now known simply as Brooklyn Bridge) was completed, with a main span of 486 metres. On opening, the American bridge became the world’s longest suspension bridge and today continues to occupy a prominent place in New York City’s skyline.

 1890. Designed by Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Baker to look indestructible, the Forth Bridge was officially completed on 4 March 1890, when HRH Edward Prince of Wales added the final rivet to the awe-inspiring cantilever structure. With the opening of the Forth Bridge in 1890, for the first time, the Firth of Forth is bridged, providing an alternative means of travel to the ferries that had traversed the waters for centuries.

1923: With the steady advance of the motor age, the need for a road crossing over the Firth of Forth became more urgent than ever. Though he didn’t live to see the bridge built, J Inglis Ker was instrumental in its conception. Ker first presented his proposals at the Hawes Inn, South Queensferry in 1923. Crucially, he won the support of Sir Henry Maybury, Ministry of Transport, the following year.

1929. Work to investigate suitable sites for the road bridge began some five years after 30 Scottish MPs campaigned for the Ministry of Transport to agree to a survey. Messrs. Mott, Hay & Anderson was involved in the bridge plans from these very early days, the firm’s civil and structural engineers responsible for conducting these initial investigations. Three possible locations were examined and the possibility of a tunnel crossing explored. A report on the possibility of a road crossing was produced, but the ferries continued until the Forth Road Bridge was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1964.

1937. Undoubtedly one of the world’s most iconic bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge opened providing road traffic with a fast route between San Francisco and Marin County. With a main span of 1280 metres, the Golden Gate Bridge seized the title of world’s longest suspension bridge from the George Washington Bridge.

1947: The national economic crisis of the 1930s and the out break of the Second World War meant that road crossing plans were shelved until the late 1940s. The Forth Road Bridge Order 1947 approved Macintosh Rock as the site for the bridge and the Forth Road Bridge Joint Board was established to supervise construction. Yet the work continued to be delayed.

1950. With the coming of the internal combustion engine, the ferries grew again in importance. By the 1950s the ferry across the Queensferry Passage was the busiest in Scotland, with four ferries making over 40,000 crossings each year and carrying 1.5 million people, 600,000 cars and 200,000 goods vehicles. In 1956 it cost between 2/6d and 7/6d for a car, and between 4/6d and 54/- for a lorry. The cost for a passenger was 5d.

1957. The author makes his first journey over the Forth by ferry.

1958: Finally, the green light was given for bridge building to begin on 10 February. Consulting engineers Freeman Fox & Partners worked alongside Messrs Mott, Hay & Anderson to oversee the bridge’s design and supervise its construction. To save the contract from going overseas, the three largest construction engineering firms in Britain formed a consortium to take on the mammoth project. Comprising Sir William Arrol & Company, The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company and Dorman Long (Bridge & Engineering) Ltd, the group became known as the ACD Bridge Company Ltd.

Construction commenced in September 58 with the preparation of the site.

1960. This further increased and by 1960, the Queen’s Ferry was handling over two million passengers a year and over 600,000 motor vehicles. Naturally, this number was ever increasing and it soon became apparent that another bridge would be required.

1960: When the building of the towers was under way, people flocked from near and far to watch the bridge begin to take shape. Bridge construction at the time was a daunting task and it was fascinating for folk on the ground to watch the brave builders scale the emerging structure.

1961: Once the cable anchorages had been bored into the rock on either side of the Forth and the bridge’s twin towers were in place, the cable spinning began. Because this method had never before been used in Europe, a training school was set up in South Queensferry for the would-be cable spinners. By August 1962, the men had created the bridge’s two enormous cables from 30,000 miles of steel wire – enough to reach around the world 1¼ times.

1963: On 20 December, the final two box girders needed to complete the main span of the bridge were swung into place. To mark the momentous occasion, the girders were swathed in the Union Jack and Lion Rampant. Remarkably, when the girders met, the two halves of the bridge were no more than an inch or so out of line.

1964. The last ever commercial ferry crossing of the Queen’s Ferry left Hawes Pier, South Queensferry on the evening of 3 September 1964, and docked at North Queensferry shortly after. The very next day, Elizabeth II opened the new Forth Road Bridge, and 800 years continual use of the Queen’s Ferry were finally brought to a close.

1964: Its roadway and footpath completed, asphalt surfacing in place and lighting installed, the Forth Road Bridge was opened to great fanfare by HM The Queen on 4 September. Commemorative stamps went on sale the same day to celebrate the world’s most northerly long span suspension bridge and the longest suspension bridge in the world outside the USA.

Around 16,000 people were invited to the official ceremony, which included a 21-gun salute fired by Royal Navy ships in the estuary. A further 50,000 members of the public turned out to witness the historic occasion from either shore, in spite of the thick mist that threatened to conceal the bridge from view.

Traffic began to flow across the bridge at 5.48pm, and as many as 20,000 half crowns were presented at the tolls in the following 3½ hours.

With a main span of 1006 metres, the Forth Road Bridge was the world’s fourth longest suspension bridge for 78 days, until the opening of New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge on 21 November.

1990: As the 20th century came to a close, the bridge’s twin towers were strengthened to cope with the increased weight of traffic now using the bridge. Since 1964 the maximum weight of goods vehicles had doubled from 22 to 44 tonnes. In 1990 the towers’ cross-bracing was strengthened and in 1998 a project to strengthen the tower legs to take the increased weight of vehicles was completed.

1993: In total, it cost £19.5 million to construct the Forth Road Bridge and its approach roads, of which £14.35 million was borrowed from central government. By December 1993, the monies collected in the bridge tolls since 1964 had repaid this debt. From this date on, toll revenue was invested in the maintenance, operation and improvement of the bridge.

1996: At the time the bridge was built, the risk of ships colliding with the structure had not been addressed. To remedy this concern, significant improvement work began in 1996 to construct defences around the base of each of the crossing’s twin towers. Completing the work was not entirely straightforward, however – the breeding patterns of a colony of rare roseate terns nesting on the nearby Long Craig Rock restricted when work could be carried out.

1997: One way tolling was introduced in an attempt to improve southbound traffic flow.

1998: Work to replace the bridge’s hanger ropes began, following the discovery of fraying on one of the ropes on the west cable. Each new hanger comprises a pair of ropes, each with its own single socket. This updated socket design is an improvement on the original, as it allows for just one rope of the pair to be replaced as required. The project was completed in 2000.

2001: In recognition of the feat of engineering that it represents, the Forth Road Bridge was designated a Category A listed structure in March 2001.

2002: Responsibility for operating and maintaining the bridge was transferred to the newly-created Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA), replacing the Forth Road Bridge Joint Board (FRBJB). Unlike its predecessor, FETA was given the power to invest in transport and infrastructure projects beyond the bridge itself.