How about Kew Bridge?
Yes its Kew
That wasn't exactly a short walk, was it...
I remember Dad telling me that Kew Bridge was built with Kemnay granite - he was brought up on a farm right next to the quarry. Now, Wikipedia says it was made of Cornish granite, so which is it? I though I ought to find out.
"Neutral" newspapers from when it was opened (1903) say mostly that is used both Cornish and Aberdeenshire granite, though the Aberdeen Press & Journal says "nearly all" from Aberdeenshire quarries. Specifically, the arches - what you'd see as the bridge - were in the sparkly silver stone from Kemnay, also used in several major buildings in Aberdeen and in London. One of the first was Holborn Viaduct, and:
Kemnay granite provided the foundations for the Forth and Tay bridges, the Liver Building in Liverpool, numerous bank headquarters in London, several London bridges, including the Tower, Blackfriars, Southwark, Vauxhall, Kew and Putney, and the Queen Victoria memorial opposite Buckingham Palace was built in the sparkling stone. More recently it has been used for the construction of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
It probably wasn't a coincidence that the contractor was a Scot - Easton Gibb, who began his career as a railway engineer. Grace's Guide lists:
He then carried out as contractor a succession of heavy constructional works, including the Aberdeen Waterworks; the Rhymney Railway, Cardiff; the Callander and Oban Railway; Dundee Waterworks; the Cannock Chase (London and North-Western) Railway; the Leyburn and Hawes Branch, North-Eastern Railway; Bradford Waterworks; King Edward VII Bridge, Kew; the North-Eastern Railway main line leading to the new High Level Bridge, Newcastle-on-Tyne; Docks at Newport, Ipswich; and the new Naval Base at Rosyth.
And of course the most modern construction methods were used, in case you were wondering. A temporary wooden bridge was built for the road, then the old bridge demolished and new foundations and abutments built inside coffer dams. The heavy materials were moved out and in via a Blondin (cable crane), first used in a quarry at Kemnay and perhaps invented by its owner John Fyfe. All the stones he supplied were precut to shape at the quarry and lowered into place.
And when it was finished, having taken five years from enabling act to naming, for about ?170, 000 split between Surrey and Middlesex, Easton Gibb presented a bill for ?20,000 for extra expenses incurred. Half that was approved initially; I don't know whether he got the rest.
