Dippen Bridge

This is not any old bridge, but one that is very significant to me and Mrs B. Dippen Bridge is about half a mile from our house and spans the Carradale Water. It is on the main road from Carradale to Campbeltown and sits at a very tight little crossroads with roads/tracks leading from it to Waterfoot and the Parish Church.

When we were both still working, we would travel down from Renfrew late on a Friday afternoon and, after having dinner, would go out for a walk that took us down to the sea and then up to Dippen Bridge. We would stand on the top and soak up the peace and quiet after a busy week at work. In the summer months bats would be flitting about above the river or a Heron might be fishing from the bank. On one very special evening we stood and watched an Otter in the water below us as it swam about in search of a meal. It was totally oblivious to our presence and seeing it in this setting was quite magical.

Mrs B always liked her evening walk up to the bridge as she felt it really made her feel at home in Carradale. You can imagine her reaction when I later discovered, while researching her family history, that her great, great grandfather had been married at Dippen Farm a stone's throw from the bridge. He married the tenant farmer's daughter and they set up home in Glasgow, where he was from. We can only speculate how they met, but there must be a good chance he sailed "doon the water" in a ferry to holiday in Carradle and maybe even met his wife to be at a dance in the village hall. Mrs B reckons this family connection to Carradale makes her even more of a "local" than I am!

I have wanted to blip the bridge and recount this story for some time now, but the conditions have never been right. Come the summer the view is blocked by the trees and in the winter the sun never climbs high enough above the hills to illuminate it. Fortunately, the conditions were right this morning and a quick detour while out for my run meant the bridge was blipped!