I don't know how many scores of times we have crossed this bridge over the burn at Sanna without ever thinking about who owns or maintains it. I suppose we assumed it was the Sanna community or, perhaps, the crofters of the township.
It isn't either. The bridge is the property of the Stead family who constructed it when they acquired and rebuilt what was, at the time, a ruin on the far side of the burn....
....turning it into their holiday home.
Further, as we discovered this morning when we were walking at Sanna, they continue to maintain it even when, as Colin Stead admitted when we talked to him, he often finds people can be quite upset when, on these very rare occasions, he closes it for a few hours.
It's just as well that Colin and his family are so generous in this age of petty litigation. Even in dry weather, the burn is difficult to cross by stepping stones, and the public bridge (above, a hundred metres upstream) was washed away in a flood some decades ago.
So - thank you Colin and the Stead family for being so public-spirited.
The original bridge was built by the Henderson family in 1893
ReplyDeleteThanks to Colin. We have used that bridge many times without thinking.
ReplyDeleteDoes he park his car on the other side of the burn?
My Grandmother was born in that house.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. In the picture of the former public bridge, there looks to be a sort of dam or weir across the burn behind. Do you know what the purpose of that was? To regulate a mill lade perhaps?
ReplyDeleteDear Neil - Thank you for your comments. There is a low barrage across the Sanna burn which was for the public water intake. I don't know of a water mill at Sanna. Jon
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