Local Geography
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Until the eighteenth century, it took ten days to travel from Inverness to Edinburgh. The Government's need to police Jacobite areas led to General Wade's programme of military road building from the 1720s, which the Jacobites used to hasten their successful advance south in 1745!
General Wade's roads vastly improved communication. Private 'turnpike' companies improved main roads in the Lowlands and were allowed to charge users tolls, which limited their use due to the expense. Canals, beginning with the Forth-Clyde Canal in 1790, provided a cheaper alternative for heavy goods. The Highland Canals (Caledonian – 1822, and Crinan - 1801) shortened sea routes but their many locks meant new, bigger steam powered ships found the old route faster.
Local Geography/History
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After the opening of the Crinan Canal in the early 1800s it was much easier for someone living in the Inner and Outer Hebrides to travel to Glasgow, never mind the attraction of the City of Glasgow in employment terms …… Then there was the Caledonian Canal between Fort William and Inverness
General George Wade
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“If you had seen these roads
before they were made,
You would hold up your hands
and bless General Wade.”. ...
Major General George Wade was appointed Commander-in-Chief Scotland in 1724 with responsibility for disarming the rebellious clans and subduing the Highlands, following the '15 rebellion. Between 1725 and 1740 he built 238 miles of military roads. These roads were almost all in points of, or leading to, military importance. He used local stone and unskilled military labour to build his roads, which were constructed using Roman road building techniques. A typical military road consisted of a base layer of large boulders with broken stone packed into any spaces and an upper layer of at least 600mm of gravel, often giving a total thickness of up to 2 metres. Although the roads were criticised as they were often steep, uneven and poorly drained, they inspired a flurry of road building in England.
Many still exist in an amazingly good state of repair where they haven't been overbuilt by subsequent development despite a century or more of neglect, - a tesament to the quality of the original design and construction .
General Wade/Major Caulfield
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Wade appointed Major William Caulfield as his Inspector of Roads in 1732 and it was he who succeeded Wade when he left Scotland in 1740. Although less well known than Wade, Caulfield oversaw the construction of a further 748 miles of road between 1740 and his death in 1767.
See http://talkingscot.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-75 for a map of the Wade/Caulfield maps. (Please note that this representation of the map is © David W Webster Jan 2005)
The Carr bridge stems from the Wade/Caulfield programme of road building. Only the arch survives. The road bed on what was called a rubble base would have been retained by the side walls that no longer exist.
There are 2 major road bridges and many, many lesser bridges that, with appropriate repair and maintenance from that time onwards, are still in regular use today !!
As some of you will be aware I write articles for UK and N American genealogical magazines. Most of these are commissioned by the editors, but it occasionally happens that a post here or in similar DGs or via email sparks off an idea in my mind for an article, that, in this case will most likely take up several hours of my time tomorrow
, - working title “The Transport Revolution in Scotland”, demonstrating how, in little more than one and a half a centuries the developments of the canals, roads and railways in Scotland led to a revolution in the mobility of people ...............Orraverybest
Davie
