The Royal Border Bridge was built by the Newcastle and Berwick Railway, which was formed in 1845 under the control of George Hudson. The line was authorised by an Act of Parliament and construction had commenced by July 1845. Much of the line was completed within two years but work on several structures, including the Royal Border Bridge, had barely begun. The line required the construction of several major structures and the Royal Border Bridge took the line over the River Tweed close to Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland. In 1847, Hudson was instrumental in the merger of the N&BR with the York and Newcastle Railway to form the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway whose line would eventually be continuous between London and Edinburgh. The company's chief engineer was Robert Stephenson. Thomas Elliot Harrison engineered the route supervised by Stephenson who had a hands-on role in the design of the key bridges along the route, although some detailed work was performed by others. The viaduct, which is built on a gentle curve, is a conventional masonry structure. It has 28 arches, 15 of which are over land south of the River Tweed and 13 over the river. The arches are set out in two groups separated by a stop pier. The bridge has brickwork soffits on the underside of the arches, and is covered by stone cladding. The bridge is at the deepest point of the riverbed. It is long and each arch span measures. The bridge contract covered a mile length including the earth embankments. On 15 May 1847, the foundation stone for the bridge, which was called the Tweed Viaduct, was laid. Cumberland-based McKay & Blackstock was appointed to built the bridge and George Barclay Bruce, a former apprentice of Stephenson's, was the resident engineer responsible for overseeing the day-to-day work. The Royal Border Bridge required of stone and the arch soffits required 2.5 million bricks. Techniques employed in the construction of Newcastle's High Level Bridge were used on the bridge. Upwards of 2,700 men were needed to build the bridge. The bridge's deep foundation were driven into the bedrock, which was covered by about of gravel, using a patented Nasmyth steam-powered pile driver. The foundations were constructed inside deep cofferdams and steam-driven pumps kept out water. The first elements completed were the 15 land arches and the stop pier which buttressed the remaining arches. The river piers were shaped at water level so that sheets of ice in the river would be broken up on contact and iron bars were embedded into the masonry for greater strength. These were covered by alterations made to accommodate an extra track.
Operations
While the bridge was under construction, temporary timber viaducts were used by early train services and construction traffic. The line was opened before the Royal Border Bridge was completed. The bridge was scheduled to open in July 1849 but was not ready until March 1850. On 29 August 1850, the bridge was officially opened in a ceremony officiated by Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert and the Queen consented for it to be named the Royal Border Bridge. In 1989, during the East Coast Main Line electrification programme, the bridge was modified by British Rail to accommodate electrification gantries. As the Royal Border Bridge had Grade 1 listed status, the overhead line infrastructure was designed for reduced visual impact and was approved by the Royal Fine Art Commission. After having stood for 143 years on the East Coast Main Line, the bridge underwent a maintenance programme in 1993. Restoration, focused on repairs to the 15 land-based arches, was undertaken as a joint project by Railtrack and English Heritage. In early 2010, plans to install a night-time illumination scheme as a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the death of Robert Stephenson were mooted. Scheduled to be operational by November 2010, weather conditions, particularly ice, damaged underwater cables, delaying the illumination preventing some lights from functioning. In January 2012, Northumberland County Council applied for a permanent lighting system to be installed. In 2016, the bridge was fitted with colour-changing lights; the installation was completed in time for the 160th anniversary.
