Book Launch / A Thing So Delicate by Moira McPartlin & Colin Baird

A chance finding on the way to the pub led to an unexpected adventure for author, Moira McPartlin and retired civil engineer, Colin Baird. As they crossed the footpath over the Dochart Viaduct, the 2nd Mass Concrete Viaduct built in Scotland, Moira asked, ‘What’s mass concrete?’

That question was the first of many that sparked the couple’s collaborative project, A Thing So Delicate:The Hidden Voices of Scotland’s Mass Concrete Viaducts.

Seasoned adventurers, Moira and Colin, found twenty significant mass concrete viaducts built in Scotland between the years 1880 and 1904. What they discovered was not ugly industrial structures but carefully engineered elegant curves that blended into their environment. They asked the questions ‘Who built these?’ and ‘What are their stories?’ Not just stories of the men in the history books but the common men and women whose lives the bridges impacted.

As Moira and Colin travelled through Scotland in their…