It was one a number of places from around the world awarded the honour in the past few days at latest meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
“Its distinctive industrial aesthetic is the result of a forthright and unadorned display of its structural components,” said the committee. “Innovative in style, materials and scale, the Forth Bridge is an important milestone in bridge design and construction during the period when railways came to dominate long-distance land travel.”
The bridge, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in March, has three double cantilevers with two 518m suspended spans between them, at the time the longest bridge spans in the world. Each of the towers has four steel tubes 3.7m in diameter and reach to a height of 110m above high water. The total length of the bridge, including its approach viaducts is 2,467m; the main structure itself measures 1,630 metres portal to portal.
Photo by Heritage Scotland (Duncan Peet)
Benjamin Baker and John Fowler’s bridge was the first major construction in Britain to be made from steel; the bridge incorporates 53,000t of the material.
