There are few man-made sights more iconic or magnificent in Scotland than the three bridges that cross the Firth of Forth - and yet it's a view that could have looked very different if plans to build a 7,300-ft-long dam had made it off the drawing board.
The idea envisaged the construction of a dam across the Forth that would have been seven times longer than the Hoover Dam and a cutting interrupted by a series locks on the scale of the Panama Canal.
The mammoth project was first mooted in 1928 by Bo'ness architect Matt Steele, who suggested that building a barrage or dam with a roadway on top would be far more cost-effective than erecting any kind of overhead road bridge.
