The original Rifleman’s Bridge was very old and built in 1800s. It spanned 75 feet over Lugar Water upstream from the Templand Viaduct and Mote Hill in the Lugar Glen. It was near a favourite picnic spot which was popular throughout the 1940s to the 1960s.

The story of the brig is told in a Cumnock Chronicle article from 1904
“In our younger days the Rifleman’s Brig marked a picturesque spot on the Lugar just beneath the target. It was a wooden brig, and a rather shaky one, but it was guarded by a gate in a palisade that was unclimbable. Once upon a time it could be climbed but the riflemen, rather meanly as we boys thought, added to the height of this palisade affair and also widened it until the edges were too far out to be negotiated without grave risk of dropping fifteen or twenty feet into the river. Around the edges and along the top there bristled a row of the most evil looking nails one might wish to see, so that the bravest preferred to cross to the other side through the river bed. But as the old giveth place to the new, so this ancient structure gave place to an elegant suspension brig erected further up the river and at a more convenient point for those who had a lawful right to use it. The new bridge was left open for the use of the public and the public did not use it well. The unthinking portion ‘swung’ the brig for the fun of the thing until it began to show signs of abuse. It gradually got worse and worse until the Volunteers were compelled to go to the expense of erecting a new one. It has been designed by Robert Bowie CE of Lugar and built on the lattice girder principle by McCartney and Co, Cumnock who have secured the contract. The building of the necessary piers has been awarded to ex-Provost Richmond’s building company.”

McCartney’s Engineering was under the control of the Taylor brothers, Charles and Andrew. The name Rifleman’s Bridge stems from the fact that the bridge was once used by Cumnock Territorial Volunteer Army Corps for rifle practice. The Volunteers were keen shots and also had a rifle range and target nearby. The Rifleman’s Brig was removed around 1927 when the landowners decided to remove it. It was offered to Cumnock Town Council but after various plans to use parts of the bridge to replace Joe’s Brig in Cumnock the plans were dropped due to the brig being rivetted together and difficult to remove. Parts of the concrete piers are all that remains today.

Templand or Lugar Viaduct was one of the great engineering feats on the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr line, which opened on 20th May 1850. It consists of 13 arches – the highest being 175 feet above the Lugar Water. The engineer was John Miller of the firm Miller and Grainger of Edinburgh. The viaduct – which takes its name from nearby Templand Farm – is still used by the Glasgow to Dumfries railway.

Spans the Lugar Water downstream from the Templand Viaduct and connects the Bank with Woodroad Park. Built in 1930s to allow easy access to the swimming pool and recreation facilities at the Woodroad.

Spans the Lugar Water and connects Warrick Drive in the Glebe with the Woodroad Park. Built by Tubewrights Ltd in Monmouthshire, Wales. Built in 1936 as part of the redevelopment of the Woodroad Park to allow easier access to the swimming pool and other park attractions.

The original Stepends Ford was bridged over in 1753 by a two-span brig which caused a serious accident in which 4 men and 3 boys were killed when an arch collapsed.

The present brig spanning the Lugar Water at the Congregational Church on Auchinleck Road went out to tender in April 1861 and is built in red sandstone with a single span of 64 feet. Contractors were A Gibson of Auchinleck and A Murdoch of Cumnock. There was a temporary wooden brig built as the old brig was taken down but the heavy storms in August and September of that year washed away the wooden brig, parts of the new stone brig and dislodged the crane that was being used in the construction. After a further accident with the arch partially collapsing, the new brig finally opened in 1864. It was widened in 2006 to accommodate a wider road and two pavements.

From Warrick’s the History of Old Cumnock 1899
In the year 1753 a bridge was thrown over the Lugar at Stepends. In all likelihood, it was the first which was built. It met, however, with an untimely end, and brought sudden death to a number of workmen engaged in its construction. The incident is told in the Scots Magazine of that year. “On the 8th August several workmen employed in building a bridge over the Lugar at Cumnock in the shire of Air, in order to shelter themselves from a heavy shower of rain, went in under a new finished arch from which the cumb or timber arch had been taken away the day before. All of a sudden, the arch fell; by which four men and four boys were killed, three had their legs broken, several others were hurt, and a horse was killed. This is thought to have been occasioned by the arch being too low. It was fifty-five feet wide and had but eight feet of spring.” It is somewhat singular that when the present bridge was being constructed over the Lugar at the same place, an accident of a similar nature took place, though happily without loss of life.

Spans the Glaisnock Water at the Dubb where the Glaisnock and the Lugar Waters meet. The original old stone brig had two spans and was about a third of the width of the present bridge. Widened in 1963 as part of the Tanyard demolition, some parts of the old brig still remain on the Dubb side if you look closely enough. New Bridge Street took its name from it.

Replaced an old Ford at the western end of the mill-race at Greenmill. Spans the Lugar Water and connects Cumnock Academy with Broomfield. Built in the 1960s to allow easy access to Broomfield playing fields by academy pupils, the brig is soon to be replaced as part of the Barony Learning Campus proposals.