The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

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*[7] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated London, l3th May,
1800.

*[8] The evidence is fairly set forth in 'Cresy's Encyclopedia of
Civil Engineering,' p. 475.

*[9] Article on Iron Bridges, in the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,'
Edinburgh, 1857.

*[10] His foreman of masons at Bewdley Bridge, and afterwards his
assistant in numerous important works.

*[11] The work is thus described in Robert Chambers's ' Picture of
Scotland':--"Opposite Compston there is a magnificent new bridge
over the Dee. It consists of a single web, the span of which is 112
feet; and it is built of vast blocks of freestone brought from the
isle of Arran. The cost of this work was somewhere about 7000L.
sterling; and it may be mentioned, to the honour of the Stewartry,
that this sum was raised by the private contributions of the
gentlemen of the district. From Tongueland Hill, in the immediate
vicinity of the bridge, there is a view well worthy of a painter's
eye, and which is not inferior in beauty and magnificence to any in
Scotland."

*[12] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop,
13th July, 1799.

*[13] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Liverpool,
9th September, 1800.

*[14] Brodie was originally a blacksmith. He was a man of much
ingenuity and industry, and introduced many improvements in iron
work; he invented stoves for chimneys, ships' hearths, &c. He had
above a hundred men working in his London shop, besides carrying on
an iron work at Coalbrookdale. He afterwards established a woollen
manufactory near Peebles.

*[15] Dated London, l4th April, 1802.

*[16] Letter to Mr. Andrew Little, Langholm, dated Salop,
30th November, 1799.

CHAPTER VIII.

HIGHLAND ROADS AND BRIDGES.

In an early chapter of this volume we have given a rapid survey of
the state of Scotland about the middle of last century. We found a
country without roads, fields lying uncultivated, mines unexplored,
and all branches of industry languishing, in the midst of an idle,
miserable, and haggard population. Fifty years passed, and the
state of the Lowlands had become completely changed. Roads had been
made, canals dug, coal-mines opened up, ironworks established;
manufactures were extending in all directions; and Scotch
agriculture, instead of being the worst, was admitted to be the
best in the island.

"I have been perfectly astonished," wrote Romilly from Stirling,
in 1793, "at the richness and high cultivation of all the tract of
this calumniated country through which I have passed, and which
extends quite from Edinburgh to the mountains where I now am.
It is true, however; that almost everything which one sees to admire
in the way of cultivation is due to modem improvements; and now and
then one observes a few acres of brown moss, contrasting admirably
with the corn-fieids to which they are contiguous, and affording a
specimen of the dreariness and desolation which, only half a century
ago, overspread a country now highly cultivated, and become a most
copious source of human happiness."*[1] It must, however, be
admitted that the industrial progress thus described was confined
almost entirely to the Lowlands, and had scarcely penetrated the
mountainous regions lying towards the north-west. The rugged
nature of that part of the country interposed a formidable barrier
to improvement, and the district still remained very imperfectly
opened up. The only practicable roads were those which had been
made by the soldiery after the rebellions of 1715 and '45, through
counties which before had been inaccessible except by dangerous
footpaths across high and rugged mountains. An old epigram in
vogue at the end of last century ran thus:

"Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You'd lift up your hands and bless General Wade!"

Being constructed by soldiers for military purposes, they were
first known as "military roads." One was formed along the Great
Glen of Scotland, in the line of the present Caledonian Canal,
connected with the Lowlands by the road through Glencoe by Tyndrum
down the western banks of Loch Lomond; another, more northerly,
connected Fort Augustus with Dunkeld by Blair Athol; while a third,
still further to the north and east, connected Fort George with
Cupar-in-Angus by Badenoch and Braemar.

The military roads were about eight hundred miles in extent,
and maintained at the public expense. But they were laid out for
purposes of military occupation rather than for the convenience of
the districts which they traversed. Hence they were comparatively
little used, and the Highlanders, in passing from one place to
another, for the most part continued to travel by the old cattle
tracks along the mountains. But the population were as yet so poor
and so spiritless, and industry was in so backward a state all over
the Highlands, that the want of more convenient communications was
scarcely felt.

Though there was plenty of good timber in certain districts, the
bark was the only part that could be sent to market, on the backs
of ponies, while the timber itself was left to rot upon the ground.
Agriculture was in a surprisingly backward state. In the remoter
districts only a little oats or barley was grown, the chief part of
which was required for the sustenance of the cattle during winter.
The Rev. Mr. Macdougall, minister of the parishes of Lochgoilhead
and Kilmorich, in Argyleshire, described the people of that part of
the country, about the year 1760, as miserable beyond description.
He says, "Indolence was almost the only comfort they enjoyed.
There was scarcely any variety of wretchedness with which they were
not obliged to struggle, or rather to which they were not obliged to
submit. They often felt what it was to want food.... To such an
extremity were they frequently reduced, that they were obliged to
bleed their cattle, in order to subsist some time on the blood
(boiled); and even the inhabitants of the glens and valleys
repaired in crowds to the shore, at the distance of three or four
miles, to pick up the scanty provision which the shell-fish
afforded them."*[2]

The plough had not yet penetrated into the Highlands; an instrument
called the cas-chrom*[3]

[Image] The Cas-Chrom.

--literally the "crooked foot"--the use of which had been forgotten
for hundreds of years in every other country in Europe, was almost
the only tool employed in tillage in those parts of the Highlands
which were separated by almost impassable mountains from the rest
of the United Kingdom.

The native population were by necessity peaceful. Old feuds were
restrained by the strong arm of the law, if indeed the spirit of
the clans had not been completely broken by the severe repressive
measures which followed the rebellion of Forty-five. But the people
had hot yet learnt to bend their backs, like the Sassenach, to the
stubborn soil, and they sat gloomily by their turf-fires at home,
or wandered away to settle in other lands beyond the seas. It even
began to be feared that the country would so on be entirely
depopulated; and it became a matter of national concern to devise
methods of opening up the district so as to develope its industry
and afford improved means of sustenance for its population.
The poverty of the inhabitants rendered the attempt to construct
roads--even had they desired them--beyond their scanty means; but
the ministry of the day entertained the opinion that, by contributing
a certain proportion of the necessary expense, the proprietors of
Highland estates might be induced to advance the remainder; and on
this principle the construction of the new roads in those districts
was undertaken.

The country lying to the west of the Great Glen was absolutely
without a road of any kind. The only district through which
travellers passed was that penetrated by the great Highland road by
Badenoch, between Perth and Inverness; and for a considerable time
after the suppression of the rebellion of 1745, it was infested by
gangs of desperate robbers. So unsafe was the route across the
Grampians, that persons who had occasion to travel it usually made
their wills before setting out. Garrons, or little Highland ponies,
were then used by the gentry as well as the peasantry. Inns were
few and bad; and even when postchaises were introduced at Inverness,
the expense of hiring one was thought of for weeks, perhaps months,
and arrangements were usually made for sharing it among as many
individuals as it would contain. If the harness and springs of the
vehicle held together, travellers thought themselves fortunate in
reaching Edinburgh, jaded and weary, but safe in purse and limb,
on the eighth day after leaving Inverness.*[4] Very few persons
then travelled into the Highlands on foot, though Bewick, the father
of wood-engraving, made such a journey round Loch Lomond in 1775.
He relates that his appearance excited the greatest interest at the
Highland huts in which he lodged, the women curiously examining
him from head to foot, having never seen an Englishman before.
The strange part of his story is, that he set out upon his journey
from Cherryburn, near Newcastle, with only three guineas sewed in
his waistband, and when he reached home he had still a few
shillings left in his pocket!

In 1802, Mr. Telford was called upon by the Government to make a
survey of Scotland, and report as to the measures which were
necessary for the improvement of the roads and bridges of that part
of the kingdom, and also on the means of promoting the fisheries on
the east and west coasts, with the object of better opening up the
country and preventing further extensive emigration. Previous to
this time he had been employed by the British Fisheries Society--
of which his friend Sir William Pulteney was Governor--to inspect
the harbours at their several stations, and to devise a plan for
the establishment of a fishery on the coast of Caithness.
He accordingly made an extensive tour of Scotland, examining, among
other harbours, that of Annan; from which he proceeded northward by
Aberdeen to Wick and Thurso, returning to Shrewsbury by Edinburgh
and Dumfries.*[5] He accumulated a large mass of data for his
report, which was sent in to the Fishery Society, with charts and
plans, in the course of the following year.

In July, 1802, he was requested by the Lords of the Treasury, most
probably in consequence of the preceding report, to make a further
survey of the interior of the Highlands, the result of which he
communicated in his report presented to Parliament in the following
year. Although full of important local business, "kept running,"
as he says, "from town to country, and from country to town, never
when awake, and perhaps not always when asleep, have my Scotch
surveys been absent from my mind." He had worked very hard at his
report, and hoped that it might be productive of some good.

The report was duly presented, printed,*[6] and approved; and it
formed the starting-point of a system of legislation with reference
to the Highlands which extended over many years, and had the effect
of completely opening up that romantic but rugged district of country,
and extending to its inhabitants the advantages of improved
intercourse with the other parts of the kingdom. Mr. Telford
pointed out that the military roads were altogether inadequate to
the requirements of the population, and that the use of them was in
many places very much circumscribed by the want of bridges over
some of the principal rivers. For instance, the route from
Edinburgh to Inverness, through the Central Highlands, was
seriously interrupted at Dunkeld, where the Tay is broad and deep,
and not always easy to be crossed by means of a boat. The route to
the same place by the east coast was in like manner broken at
Fochabers, where the rapid Spey could only be crossed by a
dangerous ferry.

The difficulties encountered by gentlemen of the Bar, in travelling
the north circuit about this time, are well described by Lord
Cockburn in his 'Memorials.' "Those who are born to modem
travelling," he says, "can scarcely be made to understand how the
previous age got on. The state of the roads may be judged of from
two or three facts. There was no bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld,
or over the Spey at Fochabers, or over the Findhorn at Forres.
Nothing but wretched pierless ferries, let to poor cottars, who
rowed, or hauled, or pushed a crazy boat across, or more commonly
got their wives to do it. There was no mail-coach north of
Aberdeen till, I think, after the battle of Waterloo. What it must
have been a few years before my time may be judged of from Bozzy's
'Letter to Lord Braxfield,' published in 1780. He thinks that,
besides a carriage and his own carriage-horses, every judge ought
to have his sumpter-horse, and ought not to travel faster than the
waggon which carried the baggage of the circuit. I understood from
Hope that, after 1784, when he came to the Bar, he and Braxfield
rode a whole north circuit; and that, from the Findhorn being in a
flood, they were obliged to go up its banks for about twenty-eight
miles to the bridge of Dulsie before they could cross. I myself
rode circuits when I was Advocate-Depute between 1807 and 1810.
The fashion of every Depute carrying his own shell on his back, in
the form of his own carriage, is a piece of very modern
antiquity."*[7] North of Inverness, matters were, if possible,
still worse. There was no bridge over the Beauly or the Conan.
The drovers coming south swam the rivers with their cattle. There
being no roads, there was little use for carts. In the whole
county of Caithness, there was scarcely a farmer who owned a
wheel-cart. Burdens were conveyed usually on the backs of ponies,
but quite as often on the backs of women.*[8] The interior of the
county of Sutherland being almost inaccessible, the only track lay
along the shore, among rocks and sand, and was covered by the sea
at every tide. "The people lay scattered in inaccessible straths
and spots among the mountains, where they lived in family with
their pigs and kyloes (cattle), in turf cabins of the most
miserable description; they spoke only Gaelic, and spent the whole
of their time in indolence and sloth. Thus they had gone on from
father to son, with little change, except what the introduction of
illicit distillation had wrought, and making little or no export
from the country beyond the few lean kyloes, which paid the rent
and produced wherewithal to pay for the oatmeal imported."*[9]
Telford's first recommendation was, that a bridge should be thrown
across the Tay at Dunkeld, to connect the improved lines of road
proposed to be made on each side of the river. He regarded this
measure as of the first importance to the Central Highlands; and as
the Duke of Athol was willing to pay one-half of the cost of the
erection, if the Government would defray the other--the bridge to
be free of toll after a certain period--it appeared to the engineer
that this was a reasonable and just mode of providing for the
contingency. In the next place, he recommended a bridge over the
Spey, which drained a great extent of mountainous country, and,
being liable to sudden inundations, was very dangerous to cross.
Yet this ferry formed the only link of communication between the
whole of the northern counties. The site pointed out for the
proposed bridge was adjacent to the town of Fochabers, and here
also the Duke of Gordon and other county gentlemen were willing to
provide one-half of the means for its erection.

Mr. Telford further described in detail the roads necessary to be
constructed in the north and west Highlands, with the object of
opening up the western parts of the counties of Inverness and Ross,
and affording a ready communication from the Clyde to the fishing
lochs in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Skye. As to the means of
executing these improvements, he suggested that Government would be
justified in dealing with the Highland roads and bridges as
exceptional and extraordinary works, and extending the public aid
towards carrying them into effect, as, but for such assistance, the
country must remain, perhaps for ages to come, imperfectly opened up.
His report further embraced certain improvements in the harbours of
Aberdeen and Wick, and a description of the country through which
the proposed line of the Caledonian Canal would necessarily pass--
a canal which had long been the subject of inquiry, but had not as
yet emerged from a state of mere speculation.

The new roads, bridges, and other improvements suggested by the
engineer, excited much interest in the north. The Highland Society
voted him their thanks by acclamation; the counties of Inverness
and Ross followed; and he had letters of thanks and congratulation
from many of the Highland chiefs. "If they will persevere," says he,
"with anything like their present zeal, they will have the
satisfaction of greatly improving a country that has been too long
neglected. Things are greatly changed now in the Highlands. Even
were the chiefs to quarrel, de'il a Highlandman would stir for them.
The lairds have transferred their affections from their people to
flocks of sheep, and the people have lost their veneration for the
lairds. It seems to be the natural progress of society; but it is
not an altogether satisfactory change. There were some fine
features in the former patriarchal state of society; but now
clanship is gone, and chiefs and people are hastening into the
opposite extreme. This seems to me to be quite wrong."*[10]
In the same year, Telford was elected a member of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, on which occasion he was proposed and supported by
three professors; so that the former Edinburgh mason was rising in
the world and receiving due honour in his own country. The effect
of his report was such, that in the session of 1803 a Parliamentary
Commission was appointed, under whose direction a series of
practical improvements was commenced, which issued in the
construction of not less than 920 additional miles of roads and
bridges throughout the Highlands, one-half of the cost of which was
defrayed by the Government and the other half by local assessment.
But in addition to these main lines of communication, numberless
county roads were formed by statute labour, under local road Acts
and by other means; the land-owners of Sutherland alone
constructing nearly 300 miles of district roads at their own cost.

[Image] Map of Telford's Roads.

By the end of the session of 1803, Telford received his
instructions from Mr. Vansittart as to the working survey he was
forthwith required to enter upon, with a view to commencing
practical operations; and he again proceeded to the Highlands to
lay out the roads and plan the bridges which were most urgently
needed. The district of the Solway was, at his representation,
included, with the object of improving the road from Carlisle to
Portpatrick--the nearest point at which Great Britain meets the
Irish coast, and where the sea passage forms only a sort of wide
ferry.

It would occupy too much space, and indeed it is altogether
unnecessary, to describe in detail the operations of the Commission
and of their engineer in opening up the communications of the
Highlands. Suffice it to say, that one of the first things taken in
hand was the connection of the existing lines of road by means of
bridges at the more important points; such as at Dunkeld over the
Tay, and near Dingwall over the Conan and Orrin. That of Dunkeld
was the most important, as being situated at the entrance to the
Central Highlands; and at the second meeting of the Commissioners
Mr. Telford submitted his plan and estimates of the proposed
bridge. In consequence of some difference with the Duke of Athol as
to his share of the expense--which proved to be greater than he had
estimated--some delay occurred in beginning the work; but at length
it was fairly started, and, after being about three years in hand,
the structure was finished and opened for traffic in 1809.

[Image] Dunkeld Bridge.

The bridge is a handsome one of five river and two land arches.
The span of the centre arch is 90 feet, of the two adjoining it 84
feet, and of the two side arches 74 feet; affording a clear
waterway of 446 feet. The total breadth of the roadway and foot
paths is 28 feet 6 inches. The cost of the structure was about
14,000L., one-half of which was defrayed by the Duke of Athol.
Dunkeld bridge now forms a fine feature in a landscape not often
surpassed, and which presents within a comparatively small compass
a great variety of character and beauty.

The communication by road north of Inverness was also perfected by
the construction of a bridge of five arches over the Beauly, and
another of the same number over the Conan, the central arch being
65 feet span; and the formerly wretched bit of road between these
points having been put in good repair, the town of Dingwall was
thenceforward rendered easily approachable from the south. At the
same time, a beginning was made with the construction of new roads
through the districts most in need of them. The first contracted
for, was the Loch-na-Gaul road, from Fort William to Arasaig,
on the western coast, nearly opposite the island of Egg.

Another was begun from Loch Oich, on the line of the Caledonian
Canal, across the middle of the Highlands, through Glengarry,
to Loch Hourn on the western sea. Other roads were opened north
and south; through Morvern to Loch Moidart; through Glen Morrison
and Glen Sheil, and through the entire Isle of Skye; from Dingwall,
eastward, to Lochcarron and Loch Torridon, quite through the county
of Ross; and from Dingwall, northward, through the county of
Sutherland as far as Tongue on the Pentland Frith; while another
line, striking off at the head of the Dornoch Frith, proceeded
along the coast in a north-easterly direction to Wick and Thurso,
in the immediate neighbourhood of John o' Groats.

There were numerous other subordinate lines of road which it is
unnecessary to specify in detail; but some idea may be formed of
their extent, as well as of the rugged character of the country
through which they were carried, when we state that they involved
the construction of no fewer than twelve hundred bridges. Several
important bridges were also erected at other points to connect
existing roads, such as those at Ballater and Potarch over the Dee;
at Alford over the Don: and at Craig-Ellachie over the Spey.

The last-named bridge is a remarkably elegant structure, thrown
over the Spey at a point where the river, rushing obliquely against
the lofty rock of Craig-Ellachie,*[11] has formed for itself a deep
channel not exceeding fifty yards in breadth. Only a few years
before, there had not been any provision for crossing this river at
its lower parts except the very dangerous ferry at Fochabers.
The Duke of Gordon had, however, erected a suspension bridge at that
town, and the inconvenience was in a great measure removed.
Its utility was so generally felt, that the demand arose for a second
bridge across the river; for there was not another by which it
could be crossed for a distance of nearly fifty miles up Strath Spey.

It was a difficult stream to span by a bridge at any place, in
consequence of the violence with which the floods descended at
particular seasons. Sometimes, even in summer, when not a drop of
rain had fallen, the flood would come down the Strath in great
fury, sweeping everything before it; this remarkable phenomenon
being accounted for by the prevalence of a strong south-westerly
wind, which blew the loch waters from their beds into the Strath,
and thus suddenly filled the valley of the Spey.*[12] The same
phenomenon, similarly caused, is also frequently observed in the
neighbouring river, the Findhorn, cooped up in its deep rocky bed,
where the water sometimes comes down in a wave six feet high, like
a liquid wall, sweeping everything before it.

To meet such a contingency, it was deemed necessary to provide
abundant waterway, and to build a bridge offering as little
resistance as possible to the passage of the Highland floods.
Telford accordingly designed for the passage of the river at
Craig-Ellachie a light cast-iron arch of 150 feet span, with a rise
of 20 feet, the arch being composed of four ribs, each consisting
of two concentric arcs forming panels, which are filled in with
diagonal bars.

The roadway is 15 feet wide, and is formed of another arc of
greater radius, attached to which is the iron railing; the
spandrels being filled by diagonal ties, forming trelliswork.
Mr. Robert Stephenson took objection to the two dissimilar arches,
as liable to subject the structure, from variations of temperature,
to very unequal strains. Nevertheless this bridge, as well as many
others constructed by Mr. Telford after a similar plan, has stood
perfectly well, and to this day remains a very serviceable
structure.

[Image] Craig-Ellachie Bridge.

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