@cb: According to Wikipedia, the nominal start* of the River Forth is at the confluence of the Duchray Water which runs from the eastern slopes of Ben Lomond, and the Avondhu River that flows out of Loch Ard. (This interpretation seems to be shared by the Forth District Salmon Fishery Board.) If you look on the OS map the bridges in Milton are all to the west of that confluence, so are on the Avondhu River, not the Forth.
On that basis, the first bridge over the Forth is the one at Aberfoyle.
I've built a list in Google Maps of all the bridges on the Forth, I believe those interested should be able to access it via this link.
@IWRATS: Not to forget the car ferries which operated the Queensferry Passage. Less well-known are the nineteenth century ferries across the firth from Granton and Newhaven, and the roll-on/roll-off train ferry service proposed and commissioned in 1850 by Thomas Bouch for the Edinburgh, Leith and Newhaven Railway - the first operating train ferry in the world. Bouch was also involved in two bridge proposals for the North British Railway which pre-dated the Forth Bridge. The first of these would have crossed near Charlestown; the second was more or less on the line of the current Forth Bridge, and you can still see the remnants of a bridge pier which was started on Inchgarvie in 1878. Bouch's involvement in plans to cross the firth came to end after his Tay Bridge collapsed in 1879. Finally, there was Kirkaldy hovercraft that was trialled for two weeks in 2007, as mentioned by Frenchy.
* Meaning: the point from which the water course goes by that name.
posts
