REGENT BRIDGE, EDINBURGH.

Edinburgh, “the Queen of the North,” abounds in splendid specimens of classical architecture.  Since the year 1769, when the building of the New Town commenced, its improvement has been prosecuted with extraordinary zeal; consequently, the city has not only been extended on all sides, but has received the addition of some magnificent public edifices, while the access to it from every quarter has been greatly facilitated and embellished.  Of the last-mentioned improvement our engraving is a mere vignette, but it deserves to rank among the most superb of those additions.

The inconvenience of the access to Edinburgh by the great London road was long a subject of general regret.  In entering the city from this quarter, the road lay through narrow and inconvenient streets, forming an approach no way suited to the general elegance of the place.  In 1814, however, a magnificent entrance was commenced across the Calton Hill, between which and Prince’s street a deep ravine intervened, which was formerly occupied with old and ill-built streets.  In order to connect the hill with Prince’s-street, all these have been swept away, and an elegant arch, called Regent Bridge, has been thrown over the hollow, which makes the descent from the hill into this street easy and agreeable.  Thus, in place of being carried, as formerly, through long and narrow streets, the great road from the east into Edinburgh sweeps along the side of the steep and singular elevation of the Calton Hill; whence the traveller has first a view of the Old Town, with its elevated buildings crowning the summit of the adjacent ridges, and rising upon the eye in imposing masses; and, afterwards, of the New Town finely contrasted with the Old, in the regularity and elegance of its general outline.

Regent Bridge was begun in 1816, and finished in 1819.  The arch is semicircular, and fifty feet wide.  At the north front it is forty-five feet in height, and at the south front sixty-four feet two inches, the difference being occasioned by the ground declining to the south.  The roadway is formed by a number of reverse arches on each side.  The great arch is ornamented on the south and north by two open arches, supported by elegant columns of the Corinthian order.  The whole property purchased to open the communication to the city by this bridge cost 52,000l, and the building areas sold for the immense sum of 35,000l.  The street along the bridge is called Waterloo-place, as it was founded in the year on which that memorable battle was fought.

The engraving[1] is an interesting picture of classic beauty; and as the “approaches” and proposed “dry arches” to the New London Bridge are now becoming matters of speculative interest, we hope this entrance to our metropolis will ultimately present a similar display of architectural elegance.  London, with all her opulence, ought not to yield in comparison with any city in the world; and it is high time that the march of taste be quickened in this quarter.