Publication Account

Date 1987

Event ID 1016831

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016831

General Wade was responsible for some 402km of scientifIcally planned roads in the Highlands. They were constructed between 1726 and 1735 and included forty stone bridges, the best known being Aberfeldy Bridge (also known as Tay Bridge), built in 1733. At the time ofits construction it was the only bridge spanning the River Tay, earlier bridges at Dunkeld and Perth having been destroyed.

The five-arched bridge is 112m long and 4.5m wide. It is hump-backed and still in use. The large central arch and stone obelisks at the ends of the level portion of the parapet give it a distinctive appearance.

The designer was William Adam, described by Wade as 'the best Architect in Scotland'. The stone was a chlorite schist from a quarry between Aberfeldy and Kenmore. It took two years to prepare the stones for its construction. At the quarry they were marked and numbered prior to being transported to the site of the bridge. The erection of the bridge was completed in a single year, the piers being supported on timber piles driven into the river-bed.

There are two inscriptions engraved in the parapet The fIrst in English reads:

'At the command of His Majesty King George

the 2nd this bridge was erected in the year 1733:

this with the roads and other military works for

securing a safe and easy communication

between the high lands and the tradeing towns

of the low country was by His Majesty

committed to the care of General George Wade,

Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Scotland

who laid the fIrst stone of this bridge on 23rd

April and fmished the work in the same year.'

The other inscription is in Latin and has been translated as:

'Admire this military road stretching on this

side and that 250 miles beyond the limits of the

Roman one, mocking moors and bogs, opened

up through rocks and over mountains, and, as

you see, crossing the indignant Tay. This

diffIcult work G. Wade, Commander-in-Chief of

the Forces in Scotland, accomplished by his own

skill and ten years labour of his soldiers in the

year of the Christian Era, 1733. Behold how

much avail the Royal auspices of George 2nd.'