One of Robert Adam’s Edinburgh office clerks, John Paterson, wrote to Adam in February 1790 to disclose a discussion he had with Lord Provost Stirling about creating a connecting route between Calton Hill and Princes Street, stating that ‘they had it in their power to make one of the finest approaches into Princes Street in the world’. The land on Calton Hill was currently under consideration for the construction of a new purpose-built Bridewell (which would be designed and constructed by Robert Adam) and the adjoining area, to the east of Princes Street, needed a connecting road over the Low Calton to improve communication.

Paterson suggested that a clause be inserted into the 1791 Bridewell Act to include construction of an access route to the city. There are two surviving preliminary schemes for a ‘bridge of communication’ to Calton Hill. One comprises a monumental-sized bridge within a fantasy landscape that includes stylised versions of Adam’s executed and proposed Edinburgh schemes, possibly in an effort for self-promotion. These included: on one side, the executed monument to the philosopher and friend of Adam’s, David Hume, and a classical scheme for the Bridewell which was still in its design phase, and on the other, an oversized version of Edinburgh University which had just begun construction. In the foreground of the University is the north bridge with an attractive low wall at its northern end adorned with festoons and sphinxes, similar to a sketch by Adam of the North Bridge and in a clear effort to declutter the foreground to his Register House.

The proposed bridge shown in SM Adam volume 2/50 is in the classic style and is over ten storeys in height, with a large central arch flanked by smaller pedestrian arches. One feature of note is the openings on the roadway level of the bridge with pedestrians roughly sketched to show how vistas could be created across Edinburgh. The use of the pediments below the pyramidal roofs create a regularity with the pitched roofs of the central structure and, along with the use of recessed arches to balance the arches, adds variation to the entire scheme. The scale of the design is not too dissimilar to Adam’s 1770 scheme for Pulteney Bridge in Bath and is thought to have been clearly inspired by Palladio’s unexecuted design for the Rialto Bridge, Venice which was published in his third book of I quattro libri dell'architettura. The inscription on the bridge shows Adam’s intention for the bridge to be built in 1791.

The other scheme includes a group of variant preliminary designs of a castle-style bridge. The design replicates the three-arch design shown in the previous design, the central being the carriageway and those flanking being bridleways but appears to provide only a bridge function and no additional accommodation. It is interesting to consider how Adam’s differing architectural rhetoric related to the neo-classical New Town and the medieval old town and reflected Adam’s intention to bring Calton hill into the existing cityscape.

There are some dimensions included on one of the designs (SM Adam volume 2/182) which correlate with a group of letters from Paterson sent between February and March 1790 which provides details of a measured survey taken for the land between the intended Bridewell on Calton Hill and Princes Street.

Within this group of drawings are also two sketches of Edinburgh (SM Adam volume 2/51 and 2/52). One of them appears to show a preliminary idea of a connecting bridge or viaduct in pencil with a rough sketch of a classical-style Bridewell in the background (SM Adam volume 2/52). This sketch is also inscribed in pencil ‘Mr John Clerk’, that is John Clerk of Eldin (1728-1812), Adam’s brother-in-law, which suggests that these drawings might relate to Clerl’s own sketches of Edinburgh during this time.

Neither of Adam’s designs appeared to make it beyond the initial concept stage. Paterson wrote to Adam in November 1790 describing Stirling’s concerns over the related cost that his scheme would require and the extensive land that would be needed. Indeed, Adam’s schemes would have required the demolition of a number of buildings, including some recently erected, as well as incorporation of part of the burial ground. Nothing more appears to have come from these designs.

In the early-nineteenth century, the land next to Adam’s Bridewell was chosen for the construction of a new prison, and in doing so added greater need for a connecting roadway to link the Calton to the east end of the New Town. This also coincided with the expansion of the New Town north-eastwards towards Leith, which would have benefitted from an additional connection. A ’grand access route from London’ was added to the 1813 act for the jail and a new bridge was commissioned in 1813, appointing the engineer Robert Stevenson and the architect Archibald Elliot. The new roadway cut through the Old Calton Hill Burial Ground and cost over £40,000 in total.

The realised scheme comprised a simple single-arched stone bridge topped with a classical screen on either side at street level. The design of the screen was reminiscent of a triumphal arch, referencing the end of the Napoleonic wars and the development of Nash’s Regent Street and Waterloo Place in London; it was flanked by a series of uniform, palatial terraces. The arched columned screens over the bridge offer views of the city which formed a central part of Adam’s designs, although there is no indication of whether Stevenson or Elliot had seen Adam’s designs.

See also: Bridewell, Edinburgh and North Bridge, Edinburgh.

Literature:
National Library Scotland: MSS.19992-19993, Letters from John Paterson to Robert Adam, 1790-91; A.T. Bolton, The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Volume II, Index, 1922, pp. 10, 12; A. J. Youngson, The Making of Classical Edinburgh, 1967, pp. 139-148; A. Rowan, ‘After the Adelphi: forgotten years in the Adam brother’s practice’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, September 1974, pp. 671-2; R. Macinnes, ‘Robert Adam’s public buildings’, Architectural Heritage IV, 1993, pp. 10-22; D. King, The Complete Works of Robert & James Adam and Unbuilt Adam, Volume 2, 2001, p. 54; K. McKee, Calton Hill and the plans for Edinburgh’s third New Town, 2018, pp. 13-45; J. Small, ‘Viaduct over the Low Calton’, SCRAN, online, [accessed 21 November 2022]; I.G. Brown, Auld Greekie, 2022, pp. 45-46; B. Riley, The Bridges of Robert Adam, A Fanciful and Picturesque Tour, 2023, pp. 111-7

With thanks to the Arts Society Fund and the Art Fund’s Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant which enabled archival visits in Edinburgh to support research for this scheme.

Louisa Catt, 2024