PANALBA

The Road To The Dunkeld Bridge

Dave McNicoll 03/29/2009 01:29 PM

Dunkeld Bridge © Graham Lumsden - Fotolia

Here the mighty River Tay flows from its mountain fastness into the lush, wide arable fields of the Lowlands. As the Tay nears the Highland Fault Line (3 miles south of the town) it crosses a tough band of rock, causing the valley to narrow, adding to Dunkeld’s historic strategic position: in ancient times it was known as Dùn Chailleann, meaning the ‘Fort of the Caledonians’. Behind, and to the north of Dunkeld the wide valleys of Strath Tay and Strath Tummel cut deep into the mountains of Highland Perthshire, linking up with a myriad of silver lochs and sinuously winding glens, forming the basis for the routes north to Inverness, east to Aberdeen and west to Fort William and Oban: and the main conduit to these is through Dunkeld. However, there is a conundrum in all this: while Strath Tay creates a natural route north, the river itself forms a major natural barrier to north-south movement.

The River Tay (Abhainn Tatha in Gaelic) is Scotland’s longest river at nearly 120 miles, it has the greatest catchment area of any river in Britain (nearly 2400 sq miles – 10% of mainland Scotland), and carries the greatest volume of water of any river in the British Isles (average daily discharge of over 45,000 gallons a second, and in Jan. 1993 that peaked at 500,000 gallons a second). It’s this huge volume of water, rushing down from the mountains of the southern Highlands that causes the greatest problem. Historically the lowest crossing point on the River is at Perth, where incidentally it becomes tidal, and indeed the Romans even built a bridge nearby at Scone. However, for the road north, the most obvious place to cross the river is Dunkeld. There were several early bridges built, most recently by Bishop Gavin Douglas in the 16th century, unfortunately these bridges were made of wood and were all swept away by the ferocious flood waters of the snow melt (as happened to bridges at Perth as well).

So, by the end the 18th century, you were really left with two options to get from the south to Dunkeld and beyond – cross the Smeaton Bridge at Perth (built in 1771) and head round by Meikleour and Caputh; or cross the Tay at one of two ferries at Dunkeld. These were hand-steered affairs, uncomfortable (especially if you were sharing with a horse or two), and above all dangerous in high waters. In 1776 one of the ferries over-turned, spilling horses and people alike into the torrent; six would lose their lives that day, it was obvious that something had to be done.

The second half of the 18th century saw massive, what would now be called, socio-economic changes. James Craig had designed and built Edinburgh’s New Town, Marshall and Reid had dragged Perth from a medieval backwater to modern masterpiece, Glasgow was transformed beyond recognition, and of course the Highlands were ‘improved’ by the horrors of the clearances. It was a time of genius, and chief among them was Thomas Telford. Telford hailed from Eskdalemuir in southern Scotland, son of a humble shepherd, but who by 1800 had transformed himself into the world’s pre-eminent engineer. He built canals, roads, bridges, harbours and even churches – and chief among his masterpieces is Dunkeld Bridge.

General Wade’s military roads, built in the 1720s were long past their best, and the Government decided that the time had come to improve not only the routes north, but Britain’s road infrastructure as a whole. Telford would be instrumental in constructing the great road from London to Holyhead (the modern A5, including the Menai Bridge), the Cart track, or A74 over the Beatock (now replaced by the M74) and most of the old A9 from Perth to Inverness, Dunkeld included. The process by which these ‘Parliamentary Roads and Bridges’ were built was by a process of public-private partnerships (where have we heard that one before?). Meaning, the Government would front half the bill, and the local landowners, or consortium would cough up the rest.

The River Tay at Dunkeld is 450ft wide, and it would require quite a bit of engineering creativeness to span it, and Telford was clearly the man for the job. Following the original survey work the quote of £15,000 was presented to the Government and the local landowner, the 4th Duke of Atholl. When was the last time such a project came in on time, and on budget? Well, this isn’t a new thing, and when the final costs came in for the Bridge they had spiralled up to around £40,000. Helpfully, the Government stuck to their guns and paid up their £7,500, leaving the Duke with the onerous responsibility of finding the rest. He beg, stole and borrowed heavily to find the funds, and in order to try and recoup some of this loss he installed a toll on traffic and pedestrians crossing the Bridge: trouble stored up for the future.

The preliminary work on the construction of structure was begun in late 1803 with the stone being dressed and ready by the spring of 1804. The formal start of the building was held in a ceremony in April 1805, with the first stone being laid by Sir George Stewart of Murthly, in the absence of the Duke of Atholl (the stone for the bridge had come from a quarry his nearby Murthly Estate). In order to construct the initial arches Telford moved the position of the river, building them on dry land (thus exacerbating the costs). Also, massive large wooden pillars had to be driven deep through at least twelve feet of gravel and sand to reach the bedrock, piers built and then the bridge itself on top of them. Unlike Wade’s masterpiece at Aberfeldy, Dunkeld Bridge is not a humped-backed bridge, but an arc, that is part of a great circle: a wonderful piece of engineering genius.

Finished in 1808, the bridge was opened for traffic in November that year, and finally signed off by Telford the following year. The bridge dramatically altered the approach to Dunkeld from Perth, and the town was realigned from an east-west orientation to a south-north one – connecting on to Telford’s new road north along the slopes of Craigie Barnes to Pitlochry, and north to Inverness. The bridge is constructed of seven arches, creating a span of 546ft, and stands at nearly 100ft tall. It is a wonderful structure, elegant as well as functional, a really beautiful symbol of the new vision of Scotland. When Telford designed the bridge the heaviest thing he could have envisioned crossing it would be either four horse and cart, or perhaps a regiment of soldiers, but today, 200 years later it can still carry a 40 ton lorry with a safety factor of better than double.

Over the next 70 years subsequent Dukes of Atholl never recouped their loss by way of the tolls imposed on the Bridge, and by the 1870s the tolls had become a serious bone of contention. Eventually, after much public disquiet the Highways Commission took control of the bridge, squared up the Duke’s creditors and abolished the tolls in 1879. In the 1920s Dunkeld Bridge, along with the rest of the Great North Road was re-designated as the A9 Trunk Road, ultimately linking Edinburgh with John O’Groats in the far north. By the 1970s the traffic volumes on the A9 had become untenable, with queues, jams, accidents the norm the length and breadth of the road, with notorious bottle-necks at Killiecrankie, Kingussie, Ballinluig and Dunkeld. The Government had no option but to upgrade the road, and over the next 25 years or so the entire road from Stirling to Golspie was upgraded, and each and every town by-passed. Dunkeld and Birnam were by-passed in 1977 with the opening of a new bridge over the Tay two miles up-stream. The by-pass breathed new life into Dunkeld, and with its long historical importance, 700 year old cathedral and wonderful landscapes it has become a real jewel in the crown of Highland Perthshire, and centrepiece to this is Thomas Telford’s magnum opus: Dunkeld Bridge.