Roland Paxton 1932-2025

The Forth Bridge had Roland Paxton as one of its most consistent promoters, and it is the poorer now that he has died aged 93. But it, and the profile of civil engineering in its many forms in Scotland, is stronger thanks to his persistence and enthusiasm.

Roland Arthur Paxton left Altrincham Grammar School aged 16 to join the Ordnance  Survey, and then studied civil engineering, in which he graduated in 1959 while already working in water and roads projects in Leicestershire and Greater Manchester. From 1965 he lived in, or just outside, Edinburgh, becoming Senior Principal Engineer with Lothian Regional Council until 1987. His is the Western Approach Road that glides past Murrayfield on old railway embankments, and the first refurbishment of North Bridge, cunningly placing motorway-standard barriers into the iron parapets to keep errant vehicles from falling into Waverley Station. His Innocent Railway cycle path utilised a tunnel, and the earliest cast-iron girder railway bridge in Scotland over Braid Burn, and went on over Glenesk Bridge and Newbattle Viaduct. This bought time for the last two to be reclaimed as the Borders Railway.

Still in the day job, Roland was awarded an MSc in 1975 by Heriot-Watt University for a thesis on Thomas Telford, and later a PhD for his work on the Lighthouse Stevensons (becoming a book jointly authored by a family member). He was interested in people as well as things. An honorary professorship at Heriot-Watt followed his retirement, and his historical research work and publications went up a gear.  

Roland helped draw attention to concerns voiced by Tam Dalyell MP and others in the late 1990s about the condition and appearance of the Forth Bridge, which led on to a major refurbishment in the next decade. Images of the Forth Bridge adorn his publications, from “A heritage of bridges between Edinburgh, Kelso and Berwick (1980), through editing “100 Years of the Forth Bridge” (1990) to Civil Engineering Heritage: Scotland Lowland and Borders (2007), with Jim Shipway. With its companion Highland and Islands volume it drew on record cards compiled over many years by a band of volunteers within  engineering circles.

Photography by Historic Environment Scotland
Left - book cover
Right - Roland Paxton and Sandra Purves representing the Institution of Civil Engineers Panel for Historical Engineering Works at the unveiling of the UNESCO plaque in North Queensferry

His work helped less well-informed heritage bodies to prioritise and to learn how to treat these structures. Roland and Ted Ruddock (the authority on arched bridges) together marched on the nascent Historic Scotland in 1989 after maltreatment of Gattonside and Ness Island suspension bridges, and we had to raise our game. But he was gentle in his reproofs and generous in his time subsequently as a Commissioner in the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, now Historic Environment Scotland.

He chaired the Forth Bridges Visitor Centre Trust, which mounted a display at North Queensferry until its space was reclaimed by DoubleTree Hilton Hotel. The Trust was wound up, and many of the artefacts relating to the Forth, and Forth Road, Bridges are now core to the ICE museum in Heriot-Watt University. It contains 400 records – “the Paxton Archive” -and 670 artefacts.

Roland represented the East of Scotland in the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Panel of Historical Engineering Works (PHEW), started the Scottish group in 1977,  and went on to become vice chair and then chair of PHEW. He championed a hitherto almost unknown viaduct on the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway (1811), and formed a trust to restore it from 1992-1996. He supported the Scottish Viaducts Committee and the Scottish Industrial Archaeology Panel in its decisions and recommendations. He cultivated international engineering experts in Japan and USA, bringing them to celebrate the restoration of Union Chain Bridge (2023), and to fix American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Civil Engineering Landmark plaques to the Forth Bridge (in 1985), Tay and Craigellachie Bridges plus the Titan crane in Clydebank, among others.

Roland had a knack for drawing attention to a subject, infrastructure, that too often is taken for granted. He identified the Loch nan Uamh Viaduct as the one that contained an unfortunate horse with cart on the Fort William-Mallaig line. Roland’s endorsement of a campaign was guaranteed to give it momentum, like the repair of the Linlathen iron bridge outside Dundee. These structures are his monument.

Roland’s wife Ann predeceased him, but he leaves daughters Karen and Adele, grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Mark Watson, Historic Environment Scotland 

If you would like to visit the Roland Paxton archive, follow this link for more details about the Institution of Civil Engineers Museum at Heriot Watt University.