ABSTRACT
The public proposal to make cylindrical voids in the spandrels of a bridge in Britain may have been stimulated in part by Hubert Gautier's book, but it contains a notable advance on his ideas. The story of the developments in Scotland ends where it began, at Coldstream Bridge, and the last event shows clearly that hollowing of the spandrels was absolutely necessary in the larger bridges. Voids in the same position are found in a dozen or more other single-arch bridges in south Wales of which the construction dates are unknown, but none longer than about 18 m in span and some less than 12 m. Westminster Bridge was built to the design and under the direction of Charles Labelye. The story of William Edwards's attempts to bridge the Taaf at Pontypridd in the years 1746–56 was first published in an article by his friend Thomas Morgan in The Gentleman's Magazine in December 1764.
