ONE day in the late 1930s, a young Glasgow journalist drove down to Erskine just as the ferry was leaving the left bank. Thinking nothing of it, he settled down to await its return, only to be told by a local man: “Ye’ll ha’e a lang wait, son. It’s awa’ for overhaul and it’ll no’ be oan again fur three weeks”.

Memories of the ancient Erskine ferry came back to many people on July 2, 1971, when it sailed for the final time. The reason for its demise lay overhead – the £9 million Erskine Bridge, all 11,000 tons of steel of it, and newly opened by Princess Anne.

Not everyone liked the bridge, which connected Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire. The tolls – it cost motorists 15p per journey – antagonised some people to the extent that members of the SNP staged a peaceful protest, driving over the bridge in a 30-car procession bearing placards proclaiming ‘No tolls’, and handing over the 15p in half-pence pieces (the toll was abolished, eventually, in 2006).

Other people fretted that the new bridge was a mixed blessing: while it would represent an improvement in communications in its immediate area, it would result in further increases in traffic on the A726, and it had not been matched by sufficient improvement in railway facilities.

In November 2018, however, the Erskine Bridge’s quality, and its lasting impact, were recognised when Historic Environment Scotland (HES) awarded it Category A status.

HES noted that it was one of Scotland’s most architecturally and technically designed bridges of the post-war period, and that it has the longest cable-stayed span of its type in the world.

“The Erskine Bridge is a state-of-the-art infrastructure landmark in Scotland

for its time and is recognised for its structural simplicity, economy of materials and slender appearance”, said Elizabeth McCrone, Head of Designations at HES.

“Spanning the River Clyde, the bridge was part of a strategic and highly ambitious expansion of the new motorway network in Scotland, and is directly associated with the period of ambitious transformation of Scotland’s modern infrastructure in the 1960s.

“Its minimalistic single-cable design – which is exceptionally rare for a large-scale road bridge – combined with its largely unchanged appearance makes it one of the country’s most innovative bridges of the 20th century”.