Winter Girders

A familiar path, upstream, from shingle to viaduct.  In unfamiliar winter guise.

The dense foliage of summer has long been dropped; the rosy hips and bright haws stripped bare.  The woodland opens, with views through to the river.  

The woodland floor shows signs of life returning.  Clumps of snowdrops, bright and cheery in deep, grey thicket.  Thick greenery heralds what will become a carpet of bluebells, wild garlic.  In the months ahead.  Absent are the pinks and violets of balsam and willowherb.  Winter die-back, to return.  With a vengeance.

Streams of striated sunlight strobe my path, finding routes through the sleeping trunks of alder and sycamore.  The return of spring remains but a rumour.

I close my eyes and imagine the howl of the alpha-male drifting from distant hills.  My mind’s eye sees the pack languidly loping between the grey timber, camouflaged in all but amber eyes.  One day.

Wild grasses are leached of colour.  Aside from the snowdrop cheer, only whins on the fringes, some dotted with early yellow blooms, bring colour to the woods.

Across the path a gathering of godwits peck at the ploughings.  Other than a few woodpigeons the woods are quiet.  Soon there will be a chorus to mark the rising of the sun, and the sap.  One day.  But not yet.

Even the viaduct is quiet.  Only two feet echo across the sleepers as I reach the great central span.  Gone are the regular walkers, with or without hounds at foot; gone are the cyclists.  I cherish selfishly the treasure of solitude.

At 350ft the central span is a fair chunk of the 947ft long bridge.  That span rises to over 40ft, on a girdered bowstring.

Almost a century and a half ago pairs of cast iron cylinders, each 14ft in diameter, were filled with concrete, and sunk 52ft below the ever-shifting riverbed.  Water pumped out, replaced by 150 tons of metal blocks, bases dismantled manually, to settle deeper yet.

Before the bridge opened 300 men rebelled, marched to Garmouth Station; assaulted the timekeeper.  130 returned to work, but without the extra penny per hour they sought for work on new embankments to divert the water course.

As it happens the river won - water usually does - returning to its old course within a year, having broken the new gravel embankments.

It is no surprise to find that the gentry were concerned.  After four years the Duke of Richmond and Gordon had his claim for £21,000 of compensation dismissed.  His concern, just the opening of the salmon season on 1 May.  A lot of money in 1886.  Fishing; ahead of industry, and employment.

The vision, in bridging the Spey, extending the Great North of Scotland Railway, in turn saw the end to the shipping industry that had built up in Kingston over 200 years.  Pine logs were floated down the river.  Shipbuilding followed.

In spate, rafts were guided all the way from the Abernethy forests to the estuary, peaking at 30,000 logs manoeuvred by just 80 men.  The majority went for export.  The river trip took 12 hours.  The largest vessel built at Kingston, the 500 ton Duke of Gordon.

Then came the railways.  Thankfully the viaduct remains, vital for those of us who walk and cycle; providing still a route from one bank to t’other

I return to the shingle estuary.  The wind-whipped rollers mingling with the currents to form saltflats, spread far and wide.  Shifting.  At Spey Bay the shingle sings.  It is a song of turning stones, whistling and whispering as the tide recedes on steep banks.

The woodlands may change with the seasons, but the song of the shingle remains the same.  Without ships.  Without trains.  The osprey will return.  One day; soon.