320 How Annan Built a Bridge. 



II. — How THE Royal Burgh of Annan Built a Bridge. By 

 Mr James Barbour, F.S.A. (Scot.). 



The river Annan, at the town of that name, although a con- 

 siderable stream, was not, so far as is known, spanned with a 

 bridge until the beginning of the eighteenth century. For 

 passage there was a ford, and the town owned a boat, which 

 was farmed out as part of the burgh revenues. At fairs, ford- 

 women attended, and bore over on their shoulders persons pre- 

 ferring their assistance. The science of bridge building appears 

 to have reached a low level at the Border, as the first Annan 

 bridge, built between 1700 and 1705, required to be rebuilt in 

 1720, and the latter gave place in 1824 to the existing fabric. 

 This sketch is concerned with the earliest bridge, or rather the 

 municipal management of the scheme, for the meagre and im- 

 perfect records of the Town Council and Burgh Court, the only 

 source of information available, furnish no indication of the 

 design — of the length, width, number of arches, or other details; 

 there is just enough to prove that it was a stone-built structure. 

 The circumstances out of which the scheme originated are 

 obscure. The subject is introduced abruptly in a Burgh Court 

 minute of 12th May, 1700, where it is said that several funds 

 were set apart for the work. Their nature is not stated, but 

 about this time a special item of income must have fallen to the 

 town likely to be devoted to the bridge. Annan formally 

 agreed to the project of the Commission of Royal Burghs to 

 farm the customs and foreign excise of Scotland, and to her 

 share of the profit therefrom was probably due the rise of the 

 bridge scheme, just as Dumfries Midsteeple owed its existence 

 to the same speculation. In proceeding to deal with the 

 management of the scheme it will be convenient in the first place 

 to introduce briefly the chief actors concerned; and the most 

 potent personage in respect of social and political position and of 

 influence relative to the bridge work is My Lord William^ 

 second Earl of Annandale, Provost of the burgh. Sir William 

 Frazer, in "The Annandale Book of the Johnstones," repre- 

 sents the Earl, afterwards Marquis, as the greatest of his family, 

 and as doing the country service in many high offices of State 

 which he held. His lordship's connection with the burgh of 

 Annan is not, however, alluded to; nevertheless the Earl was 

 the occupant of the civic chair in the reign of six sovereigns. 

 On 14th October, 1684, being then hardly 21 years of age, his 

 lordship, when present at the Council meeting, was chosen Pro- 

 vost, and his characteristic signature, "Annandale," is appended 

 to the minute. From this time, with the exception of two years' 

 occupancy of his son, Lord James Johnstone, the Earl continued 

 in office from year to year until his death in 172 1. At home 

 he was a Commissioner of Supply, Steward of the 



