Fowler's Bridges by Aidan Bell - November 2020: Perspectives on bridges and landscape created by the Victorian engineer Sir John Fowler on his Braemore estate in Wester Ross, Scotland.

The Victorian engineers Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker are synonymous with their crowning achievement, the cantilevered Forth Bridge in Scotland. However, Fowler and his friend and business partner Baker also transformed Sir John's holiday retreat by building distinctive miniature bridges at his Highland estate of Braemore near Ullapool in Wester Ross, Scotland, between 1865 and 1897. Along with similar estates at Sir William Armstrong's Cragside and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Watcombe, Fowler's Braemore represents an example of how Victorian engineers applied their skill and ingenuity to develop concepts of designed landscapes by creating an 'engineered landscape', by capturing water to produce hydro-electricity and creating forests and vistas for sport and pleasure.

From the big bridges of their professional careers to the little bridges at Braemore, this book examines how Fowler and Baker created elegant yet functional features of a Victorian Highland landscape. The significance of these bridges is explored through three themes: how they fit into the wider context of 19th century civil engineering, how engineering principles were applied to miniature bridge design by understanding conceptually how bridges work as a structure, and why the bridges were placed where they were in the landscape. Fowler's bridges represent the distinct genre of Victorian miniature bridge building, with the most famous of the little bridges at Braemore being the suspension bridge at Corrieshalloch Gorge.

Includes 175 pages and over 100 illustrations.