General George Wade's Bridge Aberfeldy
Lt. General Wade's bridge at Aberfeldy was first opened to traffic at the end of October 1733 - over 250 years ago. Wade regarded it the greatest of his considerable achievements in road-making. In 9 years he had personally supervised the construction of over 250 miles of military roads in the Highlands - the first engineered roads in Britain since Roman times. It was clearly of great importance to him that the Tay bridge should be completed by the end of that year. The marble plaque built into the outside of the upstream wall already anticipated this completion date: "..Lt Gen. George the first stone on 23rd April 1733 and finished the work in the same year" In fact, there were unexpected delays. On 5th October 1733, in the peak of frustration, Wade wrote from Weem to his friend the lord Advocate complaining of "so much plague, vexation and disappointments that staggers my philosophy." (He goes on to say that he "shall have to have recourse to a bumper"- his word for getting blind drunk). In more formal terms his letter in the King's Warrant book blames the delay on the failure of the quarry, broken promises from the Justices of the Peace who had undertaken to supply carriages for materials, and the general complexity of the task. Nevertheless, it reports that the work was carried up a foot above the pavement before the end of October 'so that wheeled carriages now pass over it.' Wade visited the bridge briefly in 1734 but it was not until 8 August 1735 - nearly two years later - that he attended the formal opening celebrations. The total cost was £3,596 or, in today's terms, over £1m. No reasonable expense had been spared. The best architect in Scotland, William Adam, was hired to design the structure and master masons were brought from the northern counties of England to spend all winter preparing the stone - a grey chlorite schist from a quarry at Farrochil about a mile to the south-west and the following summer constructing the bridge. This com
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Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
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