Peter Nicholson (architect)
Peter Nicholson was a Scottish architect, mathematician and engineer. Largely self-taught, he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker but soon abandoned his trade in favour of teaching and writing. He practised as an architect but is best remembered for his theoretical work on the skew arch, his invention of draughtsman's instruments, including a centrolinead and a cyclograph, and his prolific writing on numerous practical subjects.
Portrait of Nicholson by James Green, c. 1816, donated to the National Portrait Gallery in 1961
Kielder Viaduct, information plaque
A skew arch is a method of construction that enables an arch bridge to span an obstacle at some angle other than a right angle. This results in the faces of the arch not being perpendicular to its abutments and its plan view being a parallelogram, rather than the rectangle that is the plan view of a regular, or "square" arch.
A masonry skew arch bridge photographed shortly after its completion in 1898, showing the helicoidal nature of its stonework. Sickergill Skew Bridge over the River Raven at Renwick, near Penrith.
Store Street Aqueduct from Store Street
Swin Bridge over the River Gaunless
A contemporary engraving of Denbigh Hall Bridge
