General Wade, Builder of Roads

Issue No. 29 Oct 2010 General Wade, Builder of Roads CONTENTS Page Notes from the Chair & Archive News 2 Preserving our Heritage: Wade Roads and Bridges 4 Exploring a Wade Road on Foot 8 Archaeologists Love Perth’s Ancient Middens 12 Patrick Matthew preceded Darwin by a quarter century 21 The Friends’ Outing to Stobhall 24 Picture courtesy of SCRAN 1 Notes from the Chair Dear Friends, The summer has flown by (albeit leaving pleasant memories of long sunlit days), and the clocks will soon be back on GMT. The outing to Stobhall (see Jackie Hay's excellent report) is now another distant memory. But the advantage of winter is that the Friends resume their activities with a programme of talks and other events. The season has started most successfully, with Miss Rhoda Fothergill's talk on post-War Perth on 23 September. As with all her talks, our speaker treated us to a wealth of interesting facts, figures, anecdotes and some very apt illustrations. Then, on the 1st of October, volunteers manned the Friends' stall at the Elderly Persons' Forum. We were invited to set out a stall to inform senior citizens of Archive-related activities, and, although quieter than last year's Forum, it was a lively and worthwhile gathering. As I write, we look forward to welcoming back archaeologist Mr Derek Hall, this time to talk to us about Romans, doocots and orchards – cultural features in the Carse of Gowrie. This will be held at 2pm on Thursday 21 October. Before Christmas, the Friends will be involved in a prize-giving for the Heraldry Competition, which we have sponsored as part of Perth 800. Schools throughout Perth and Kinross have been invited to design a shield or other heraldic device which represents their community. The purpose of the competition is to interest our young people in history, heraldry, art and their communities. So far we have received entries from about half a dozen schools In the New Year we look forward to welcoming Mr Geoff Holder as our guest speaker on 24 March, at 7pm. His theme – Hanged by the neck until ye be dead: murders, murderers and executions in nineteenth century Perthshire – certainly sounds grim, but I suspect that it may prove most enjoyable. On 21 April Dr Nathalie Rosset discusses Perth as a frontier town and on 26 April, after the AGM, Ms Margaret Bennett will share with us her experiences of recording and archiving Perthshire's oral tradition. I hope you will be able to attend and enjoy all these meetings. All good wishes, Margaret Borland-Stroyan 2 Archive News I suppose the most recent and exciting news is the success of the conference ‘Perth – a place in history’. Organised by P&K Heritage Trust, Local Studies, the Museum and the Archive, the two-day conference featured a wonderful range of topics and some brilliant speakers. I know quite a few of you were there, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. For those of you who couldn’t make the conference, look out for a publication of the papers… Other ventures of the Archive have included broadening our reach through the wonders of social networking. Using Facebook, Twitter and Flickr is exciting, and hopefully will help us communicate with all kinds of potential users, but at the moment, we’re taking baby steps, feeling our way as to how we can use these sites most effectively. The main cataloguing task over the summer has been of MS254, the Munro Society collection. This was quite a toughie to arrange and list, simply because the material came from a variety of creators. However, the list is now with the Society’s Archivist for checking and the collection is available to the public. Established in 2002, the Society provides a forum for those who have completed a round of Munros, and the collection contains wonderful photographs of mountains and climbing logs by Munroists, as well as the Society’s administrative papers. As usual, to keep up to date with newly-listed collections and new accessions, check out the Archive’s web pages at www.pkc.gov.uk/archives. And while you’re online, have a look at the images we’ve been posting on Flickr – we need people’s help in transcribing and translating the older documents as well as help with more information. Just log on through the Archive’s website and browse the different sets – especially the one that celebrates Perth 800. Jan Merchant Friends of P&KC Archive, AK Bell Library, York Place, Perth PH2 8EP Scottish Charity No. SCO31537 Tel: ( 01738) 477012 Email: [email protected] Hon. Presidents: The Provost; Sir Wm. Macpherson of Cluny and Blairgowrie; Mr D. Abbott Editor: David Wilson 3 Bridging Perthshire’s Past: Conservation and Promotion of an 18th century system of communication Bridging Perthshire’s Past is a three-year project which focuses on the 18th century system of communication conceived by General Wade as part of a military solution to effectively garrison Scotland. The system of roads and bridges which eventually came to cover most of the Highlands should be seen within the context of the general feeling of unrest in Scotland at that time. Dissatisfaction with the 1707 Act of Union had only grown after a series of breaches of the Treaty by the British government and delays in honouring financial inducements. The subsequent rebellions attempted to a lesser or greater extent and with varying success to capitalise on this dissatisfaction, although all ultimately failed to restore the Stuarts to the throne. It is worth remembering that General Wade did not arrive in Scotland to carry out his proposals to garrison Scotland until 1725, many years after the last significant rebellion in 1715. It is doubtful whether he would have been in Scotland at all had it not been for a memorandum to George IV, written the previous year by Simon Fraser, the 11th Lord Lovat. In it, Lord Lovat claims that the measures put into place to control the Highlands after the 1715 rebellion were for the most part not working. In particular, he points to the Disarming Act of 1716, which disallowed Highlanders from carrying all ‘warlike’ weapons. Of course, such an act proved difficult to enforce, and worse, Lovat suggested that it left loyalists vulnerable as they dutifully handed in their weapons while those disloyal to the King only handed in use- less and broken weapons, thereby remaining armed. He further suggests that the new barracks had largely been a waste of money as they were wrongly sited and manned by regular troops who, unlike the Highland Com- panies made up of local men, were not used to the mountainous and rugged terrain of the area and couldn’t pursue criminals and bring them to justice. However, the Highland Companies (one of which, it is worth noting, had been commanded by Lovat himself) had been disbanded in 1717 as a waste of money. 4 In response to the memorandum, General Wade was instructed by King George to proceed to Scotland to report on how far Lovat’s letter was founded on fact and to make proposals on how best to settle that part of the Kingdom. Wade left for Scotland on 4 July 1724 and his report reached the King on 10 December that same year. His report largely confirmed Lord Lovat’s claims and, perhaps crucially, pointed out that, of the 22,000 men in the Highlands capable of bearing arms, only 10,000 were loyal to the King. The rest had been actively involved in rebellion and would happily rise again in support of the Pretender. As requested, General Wade also gave a number of recom- mendations to subdue any unrest in the Highlands including a new disarming act, re-establishing the Highland companies and strengthening a number of key strongholds such as Edinburgh and Stirling. He also proposed two new forts, one at the southern end of Loch Ness which Wade called the most ‘centrical’ part of Scotland and which he believed to be of key strategic importance, and another at Inverness on the site of the old medieval castle. Although not one of his specific report proposals, General Wade does note that in terms of troop movement ‘the Highlands of Scotland are still more © Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust Bridge at Spittal of Glenshee built under the supervision of Major Caulfield. 5 impractical from the want of © Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust roads and bridges’, and for the next nine years (1725—1733) Wade set about constructing a transport system which would be fit for the rapid movement of large amounts of troops and gun and baggage trains. General Wade finally left Scotland in 1740 and the road- building programme was entrusted to Major Caulfield, who from documentary sources appears to have been with Gen- eral Wade from at least 1729 until his death in 1767. The Bridging Perthshire’s Past project aims to preserve and promote the remains of Wade’s and Caulfield’s work in Perthshire and may be divided The distressed masonry in the soffit of Errochty Water bridge into three key areas. The first is to undertake conservation work at a number of critical sites, including bridges at Dalnamein, Errochty Water and Spittal of Glenshee, the latter being the best example in Perthshire of a bridge constructed under the supervision of Major Caulfield. This year’s work has concentrated on Errochty Water bridge and Trinafour on the military road between Crieff to Dalmarnoch. The bridge is of rubble construction with a single arch, and as with so many 18th century bridges, it was later widened, buttressed and tied.

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