Army road section a 'Friday job'

By Steven McKenzie
Highlands and Islands reporter, BBC Scotland news website

A section of the Tyndrum to Fort William military road was excavated

Roads built to suppress rebellion in the Highlands were not always made to the exacting standards of their famous engineer, archaeologists suggest.

General George Wade set out basic rules for military roads built from central Scotland to the north in the 1700s.

An excavation of a section of Wade's Road in Glencoe revealed its soldier builders gave up digging away soft peat and just laid the road on top of it.

John Lewis, of Scotia Archaeology, joked it may have been a "Friday job".

General Wade had ordered that boulders and pebbles be laid down first followed by a gravel surface on top.

Mr Lewis previously carried out assessments of roads at Fort Augustus in the Highlands and Glen Ogle in Stirlingshire.

The standards of roads may have depended on the conditions - it was horizontal rain when I was there John Lewis Scotia Archaeology

He has now been involved in the excavation of a section of military road between Kingshouse and Altanfeadh.

Mr Lewis was surprised at how insubstantial the road was and the construction techniques were inferior to those used on the Kiliwhimen to Bernera road near Fort Augustus, where it was built as ordered.

The archaeologist said: "Theoretically, these roads were to be built a particular way.

"The standards of roads may have depended on the conditions - it was horizontal rain when I was there - materials available, the squad assigned to it and any time limit they had imposed on them."

The removal of peat appeared to have been given up on when the soldiers were only inches from reaching the bottom where there was rock and peddles.

Mr Lewis said investigations of military roads elsewhere in Scotland have shown they were not always constructed to Wade's basic plan.

He said that the Kingshouse part may have been a "Friday job", which usually means a task done hastily with the workers' focus on the weekend rather than the chore at hand.

Gaelic-speaking officers

The excavation was carried out at the request of energy company Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) which is replacing an overhead electricity cable with an underground one.

Aberfeldy-based Scotia Archaeology's field work report is newly-published on Highland Council's Historic Environment Record.

The Kingshouse to Altnafeadh section is part of the Tyndrum to Fort William road - the majority of which was constructed under the supervision of Major William Caulfield.

Caulfield succeeded Wade as the military's chief road builder in 1740 - however the routes continued to be better known as Wade's.

The roads were constructed following the failure of the Jacobite uprising of 1715.

They linked up forts from Perth to Fort William, then north to Fort Augustus and Inverness.

The aim was to allow quicker movements of troops and artillery.

Gen Wade was the first road engineer to build, or in some later cases inspire the construction of, more than 250 miles of roads in Scotland.

He was also recommended that the government recruit Highland soldiers to be commanded by Gaelic-speaking officers to help tackle Jacobite rebels.