'It may perhaps interest you if I mention a few figures in connexion with the construction of the bridge. Its extreme length, including the approach viaduct, is 2,765 yards, one and one-fifth of a mile, and the actual length of the cantilever portion of the bridge is one mile and 20 yards - about eight millions of rivets have been used in the bridge and 42 miles of bent plates used in the tubes, about the distance between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The works were commenced in April 1883, and its highly to the credit of everyone engaged in the operation that a structure so stupendous and so exceptional in its character should have been completed within seven years' - HRH The Prince of Wales, 4 March 1890



The Forth Bridge was the greatest engineering feat the Victorian world had ever seen and remains, to this day, one of the great achievements of mankind. The Forth Bridge: A Picture History, tells the dramatic story of its construction using rare archive photographs.