Three obtusely pointed arches

Cramond Brig was built c.1500 and once crossed the division between Edinburgh and West Lothian. It is the first bridge on the river Almond, which reaches the Forth about a mile downstream and historically was on the main route north out of Edinburgh. The bridge was closed to vehicles in 1968 after nearly 500 years service with a number of maintenance projects which are recorded on the stonework as 1617-19, 1687-91, 1761, 1776 and most recently in 1854.

In his Tales of a Grandfather, Sir Walter Scott records the traditional tale of how King James V (1512-42) was attacked while walking across the bridge. He was rescued by a local tenant farmer, Jock Howieson, who he later rewarded with a gift of the land he worked at Braepark. The King asked in return that Howieson and his descendants should be prepared to wash the monarch's hands either at Holyrood Palace or when they passed by Cramond Brig. How often this duty was carried out in the following centuries is not known, although it was certainly orchestrated by Sir Walter Scott for King George IV during his Scottish visit of 1822.