Overtoun Bridge

OVERVIEW

A category B-listed stone bridge of 1895, designed by H. E. Milner, carrying the approach road to Overtoun House across the gorge of the Overtoun Burn near Dumbarton. Since the 1950s dogs walked across it have been reported jumping from the same side, at the same point, to the rocks below; estimates run to fifty dead and several hundred jumps. The press call it the Dog Suicide Bridge.

HISTORY

Overtoun House was built in 1859–62 for the chemical manufacturer James White, whose son became Lord Overtoun; the estate is in Celtic tradition a 'thin place'. In 1994 a man threw his infant son from the bridge, saying the child was the Devil, and tried to kill himself; he was found to be severely mentally ill. In 2014 the canine psychologist David Sands proposed that the parapet hides the drop and that the scent of mink drew the dogs; an RSPB check found mink and other mammal nests on the favoured side, and in a scent test most dogs went for the mink.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The deaths are documented by the local press, the SSPCA (whose inquiry was inconclusive) and the house's owners, who watched dogs go over. Locals say the animals sense something; the mink theory answers the where but not, its critics say, the why. It is here as an unexplained pattern with a record.

VISITING

The bridge and the grounds of Overtoun House are open to walkers. Keep dogs on a short lead on the bridge — the house asks it.