The 18Th Century Military Road Network
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THE 18 TH CENTURY MILITARY ROAD NETWORK ON THE FORESTRY COMMISSION NATIONAL FOREST ESTATE IN THE HIGHLANDS . INVERNESS , R OSS & S KYE , L OCHABER AND NORTH HIGHLAND DISTRICTS DECEMBER , 2009 VOLUME I - R EPORT AND APPENDIX COLIN SHEPHERD FOR FORESTRY COMMISSION SCOTLAND THE 18 TH CENTURY MILITARY ROAD NETWORK ON THE FORESTRY COMMISSION NATIONAL FOREST ESTATE IN THE HIGHLANDS . INVERNESS , R OSS & S KYE , L OCHABER AND NORTH HIGHLAND DISTRICTS DECEMBER , 2009 VOLUME I - R EPORT AND APPENDIX COLIN SHEPHERD FOR FORESTRY COMMISSION SCOTLAND Copyright Forestry Commission Scotland, 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Copyright of the various illustrations used reside with the individual owners named. 1 CONTENTS VOLUME I Contents and List of Figures 1 Contents of DVD 2 Summary 3 Introduction - Aims and Objectives 4 Methodology and Reproduction 5 Archaeological and Historical Background 8 The Military Roads on the National Forest Estate 11 Mitigation and Recommendations 20 Conclusion 23 Acknowledgements 24 Bibliography and Sources 24 Appendix I - Synopsis of the 200m Sections within the Forest Blocks 26 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Auchinech and the ‘Road to Badenoch’ 8 Figure 2 Wade’s map of Inverness, circa. 1730 9 Figure 3 RHP 3447, road from Inchree to Onich, c.1771 10 Figure 4 Wade’s sketch of the roads to Fort William, c.1724-45 11 Figure 5 Roy’s depiction of the road to Onich, c.1747-55 12 Figure 6 RHP 3445, estate plan of Corrychurrachan, c.1771 13 Figure 7 Taylor & Skinner’s map of the road at Ratagan, c.1776 14 Figure 8 Roy’s depiction of the road at Inchnacardoch, c.1747-55. 15 Figure 9 Roy’s depiction of the road south of Foyers, c.1747-55. 16 Figure 10 Andrews’ map of the Contin to Poolewe route, c.1782 19 VOLUME II THE GAZETTEER OF SITES Explanation of Terms Inverness, Ross and Skye 1 Lochaber 44 North Highlands 55 2 CONTENTS OF DVD Folder Folder Files Format IRS IRS documents 200m sections complete Word 200m synopses Excel Fieldwork record sheet Excel IRS PDFs 200m sections complete PDF 200m synopses PDF Fieldwork record sheet PDF IRS pics Photographs JPG Lochaber L documents 200m sections complete Word 200m synopses Excel Fieldwork record sheet Excel L PDFs 200m sections complete PDF 200m synopses PDF Fieldwork record sheet PDF L pics Photographs JPG North Highlands NH documents 200m sections complete Word 200m synopses Excel Fieldwork record sheet Excel NH PDFs 200m sections complete PDF 200m synopses PDF Fieldwork record sheet PDF NH pics Photographs JPG Report Report Word Report Quark7 Report PDF Gazetteer Word Gazetteer Quark7 Gazetteer PDF Illustrations used JPG; EPS Military Road DES files Word Quark7 PDF JPG 3 SUMMARY This survey was commissioned in order to assess and record the nature, extent and condition of the Military Road network within the Inverness, Ross and Skye, Lochaber and North Highlands Forest Districts. The aim was to supply baseline data in order to assess and plan the management of this national monument. The survey has demonstrated that many more individual features can be expected to be found in the future, provided attention is paid to management and mitigation issues. Many previously unrecorded features were found during the course of the survey. The Military Road network can be seen as a multi-phase monument covering half the land area of Scotland. The origins of many of its component parts lie in the mists of time and most of it is still in use today. It is an access way linking remote times and places and binding the wide range of communities and histories of the different regions of Scotland together. Forestry Commission Scotland is in the unique position of being responsible for more well-preserved stretches of this unique network than any other body. The Military Road network can be used as a routeway to a greater understanding of the ecological and social histories residing within the National Forest Estate. 4 INTRODUCTION - A IMS AND OBJECTIVES The Military Road system in the Highlands was initiated by General Wade in response to a letter sent by Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, to George I in 1724 complaining of the disbanding of the ‘Independent Companies’ - one of which had been his own (Taylor, 1996, 17). Although the construction of the majority of the Military Roads were overseen by his successor, ‘Major’ Caulfeild, after 1740, Wade’s name has become synonymous with the system, which expanded and underwent many changes between then and the end of the century. It is questionable how much these roads led to the dissolution of the pre-’Improvement’ way of life of the Highlands. The estate plans of Lochaber in the early 1770s depict a landscape in which common grazings were being enclosed, but for the benefit of the old fermtouns which appear to have been undergoing little, if any, depopulation. Interestingly, these enclosures were largely being made by means of feal dykes - not the drystane dykes so beloved of the 19th century ‘Improvers’. So, whilst the ‘Wade’ roads may have been being utilised to open up markets during a period of agricultural change, this change was not yet of the draconian order of the following century. This seems to have developed alongside the next period of great road-building, under Telford, in the first half of the 19th century. The construction of the Military Roads, therefore, covers almost a century of change and devel - opment and those built at the beginning of the period, in the 1720s, are not necessarily equitable with those built at the end of the 18th century. The Highlands during this period underwent many changes which, however, would soon be overshadowed by even greater socio-political changes. The agricultural ‘Improvements’ were soon to result in mass (and often forced) migrations to new coastal towns, the developing cities of the ‘Central Belt’ and to new locations overseas. The upheavals of the ‘45’ are not necessarily to be conflated with the development of a capitalist mindset and the enforced rejection of a subsistence economy, grotesque as some of the repercussions of the ‘45 undoubtedly were. To return to the question of the Military Roads: their genesis and development were not a simplistic response to a single stimulus. Because of this, they form an important part of the dataset from which we might yet unravel aspects of the development of Highland life through the murky political strife of the 18th century. As a step towards such endeavours Forestry Commission Scotland have undertaken to record all stretches of the Military Roads in the National Forest Estate in Inverness, Ross and Skye, Lochaber and North Highland Forest Districts. Firstly, this record will help in the management of the surviving remains so as to ensure their survival for future generations. Secondly, it will provide an assessment of the state of survival in 2009 in order to monitor and help prevent further degradation, especially for those parts of the network that have, thus far, survived in good condition. Finally, it will seek to provide a record of the range of features which comprise the Military Road network throughout the Highlands. It has been noted above that the development of this system occurred across nearly a century, throughout a range of terrains and in order to satisfy the varying needs of a range of military and socio- economic parameters. A section of late rural roadway between Contin and Poolewe, whilst utilised periodically by the military, should not be expected to look the same nor to have evolved in the same way as the early great ‘military highway’ between Fort William and Fort George. Such assessments of typological variation will help in building a picture of changes in the wider socio-economic world during the 18th century in the Highlands. 5 METHODOLOGY AND REPRODUCTION The Military Road network is a multi-phase monument covering over half the land area of Scotland. The Forestry Commission is in a unique situation in Britain in that its landholdings cover extensive and widespread areas. These areas are able to display a representative view of a broad range of monuments. Its scope in this respect is unmatched by any other organisation in Britain. This survey of the Military Roads of the 18th century gives the opportunity to consider a representative sample of some of the finer details of this vast and complicated monument. Questions concerning scale become very relevant very quickly with respect to planning such a survey. Context is being seen increasingly as critical to landscape study and conservation (for example, see Lagerås, 2007; Whyte, 2009; ). This survey brings to the fore many challenges surrounding these issues. Individual features may be excellent examples of their kind but, divorced from a contextual matrix their importance diminishes. A broad range of individually insignificant features, on the other hand, can retain the integrity of a broader context and, as a group, outweigh the exemplary by virtue of that integrity. Such extremes can be obvious and accomodated. It is the broader range of sites within less certain contexts which give the greater problems. This difficulty is exacerbated when the original design is unknown. It is not enough to assume that all sections of the Military Road network conformed to an ideal prototype (see, for example, Taylor, 1996, 36). This network was constructed across a timespan of more than eighty years, through a range of terrains and to achieve a variety of ends. The question of which bits represent the whole most accurately can be seen to be unanswerable.