A salute to the military men who blazed a Highland trail followed to this day
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INVERNESS today has a Wade Road and a Caulfield Road, named after the pair whose roadbuilding created new arteries to and from the Highlands in the largest civil engineering exercise Scotland had seen.
We had no direct link with Perth or Stirling until Wade’s 102-mile road from Dunkeld in 1728 took a line past Pitlochry and Blair Atholl and over the challenging Drumochter Pass. He headed through Badenoch and Strathspey, where he paused to build Ruthven Barracks overlooking Kingussie.
The Wade Stone, a marker on the original route near Dalnaspidal is named for Wade putting a guinea on top, returning a year later to find it still there, an indicator that he was a tall man.
Then it was over The Slochd and as it neared its destination, a ferry across the Findhorn and on past what was Tomatin House. The road continued from Moy – along what is still a right of way for walkers – and over the hill, past Druid Temple and down through what is now Hilton, along what became Old Edinburgh Road and on to Inverness Castle. A breathtaking undertaking at a mere £70 a mile!
Wade even found time in 1730 to build a link road to Crieff and Stirling.
Having already created the Inverness route to Fort Augustus and Fort William, the Commander of North Britain had a new vision – to connect his Great Glen highway with Dalwhinnie. This took him over the mountains, his road reaching 2500 feet high, creating the bleak Corrieyairack Pass.
Ironically, Bonnie Prince Charlie would later use this route to move quickly and safely from Glenfinnan to Dalwhinnie and Perth.
The bridge at Aberfeldy, which cost £4000 of his total £9000 budget, is a highly regarded Wade construction. His last, in 1736, was the High Bridge over the Spean, 90 feet high.
Wade’s time in the Highlands was over in 1740, as he became a Privy Councillor, then Field Marshal and by 1744 he was Commander in Chief of the King’s Army. But when the ’45 Rebellion came, he was twice in the wrong place and missed the Jacobite forces. He was forced to resign and his role was taken by the king’s son, the Duke of Cumberland.
Wade passed the road building reins to assistant and fellow Irishman, Major William Caulfield, who lived at Stratton Lodge, Culloden, and who would go on to build four times as much road as Wade’s 250 miles.
He took advantage of evolving techniques, including introducing earthworks for cuttings and embankments while also constructing drystone retaining walls and stone culverts.
He built from Blairgowrie to Inverness, via Braemar and The Lecht pass, and from Loch Lomond to Fort William across Rannoch Moor. From Loch Lomond west, Caulfield conjured up a road to Inveraray, the Rest and Be Thankful.
From Fort Augustus, he fashioned another new creation between it and Bernera Barracks in Glenelg.
Caulfield died in 1767.
In 1803, with military need declining post-Culloden, trade flourished along the Wade/Caulfield roads but merchants called for fresh maintenance. Parliament approved a Commission on Highland Roads and Bridges, with 50 per cent of all projects to be paid for by the government.
They appointed a chief engineer whose name also lives on – Thomas Telford. His chief inspector, John Mitchell from Forres, introduced his son Joseph Mitchell to the projects.
Telford and Mitchell would don the mantle of Highland transport heroes, following the trail blazed by the military road masterminds.
n Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
