GALLERY: 40 years since Kessock Bridge first opened to traffic
With thanks to Am Baile, we can look back on old photos of the crossing being built
Last updated 19th Jul 2022
On July 19th 1982, traffic was allowed to cross the Kessock Bridge for the very first time.
It came after years of campaigning and then building the crossing over the Beauly Firth.
Its build coincided with the construction of the Dornoch and Cromarty bridges, with the overall project named "The Crossing of the Three Firths."
With thanks to Am Baile and High Life Highland, we take a look at how the Kessock Bridge came together.
We've also been speaking to Highland Councillor Margaret Paterson, whose life as a mother was transformed after the bridge was built.
Bridge views "second to none"
Construction of the bridge began in 1978, with the hope it would provide much needed improvements to the A9 and overall better access to the North of Scotland.
Over the next four years, the crossing started to come together.
Until eventually it was completed and traffic no longer needed a ferry or a lengthy drive around the Black Isle to travel to the North of Scotland.
Now a Dingwall Councillor, Margaret Paterson has fond memories of journeys to Inverness before the bridge was built.
She said: "I lived in Culbokie, we could come over Mount Eagle and get the ferry across. It was wonderful, it was an 'outing'.
"It did continue for a quite a while after the bridge opened."
Margaret explained the vast difference between giving birth before and after the Kessock Bridge was built.
She added: "Personally for myself, I have nine children and had to go round the long way. To the extent that my third child was born in the ambulance.
"My fourth child was actually born at the Ross Memorial hospital in Dingwall, but the next day she developed pneumonia.
"We had to make a very quick drive to Inverness, and it was a dreadful winter.
"My last one, we just got there with 10 minutes to spare and she was born.
"If we had gone the long road, we wouldn't have made it and she would have been born in the ambulance as well.
"People who lived during that time before the bridge was built, you take it for granted but it was a long journey for people to go right round the road.
"Visitors have always said to me, what wonderful scenery.
"From whichever way you go over the bridge, both sides are beautiful.
"Second to none."
The Highland Archive Centre are holding an exhibition on the construction of the Kessock bridge on August 5th, the day before the anniversary of the Queen Mother officially opening the bridge.