Seil Island | Roland's Ragbag

View from the Clachan Bridge (‘The Bridge Over the Atlantic’), looking north. Seil Island is on the left and the mainland on the right.

BRIDGE OVER THE ATLANTIC

There is a bridge
Across a stream,
An inlet of the sea.
I see it as
Much more than that –
A link ‘twixt you and me.

It spans the gap,
It binds the space
Across the fearsome oceans.
It joins our thoughts,
And culls despair;
Intensifies emotions.

It’s name it claims
Describes its task –
To link our worlds intact;
And that it does,
But here’s the rub,
It cannot ease our hurt in fact.

A grandiose name;
A claim to fame.
If I were being pedantic,
I’d cry with shame,
And take the blame
For being so Romantic.

The stone was erected in 1992 to commemorate the bridge’s bicentenary. An inscription has been added which reads: “Lest our tomorrows become in time forgotten yesterdays.”

The Clachan Bridge is a simple, single-arched bridge spanning the Clachan Sound, 14 miles south-west of Oban in Argyll, Scotland. It links the west coast of the Scottish mainland to the island of Seil. The bridge was built in 1793 with a single high arch, designed to allow the passage of vessels of up to 40 tonnes at high tide.

Because the Clachan Sound connects at both ends to the Atlantic Ocean, and might therefore be considered part of that ocean, the bridge came to be known as the