Note

Date July 2008

Event ID 1043206

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1043206

Confirming a West Highland Railway viaduct legend by Professor Roland Paxton MBE

In 1984, when recording the 21-arch, mass-conctrete, Glenfinnan Viaduct for the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historic Engindeering Works, the legend of a Robert McAlpine horse and cart being buried in a pier after an accident during construction in c.1898 was addressed by Prof. Roland Paxton.

In 1987, Prof. Paxton and colleagues invetstigated the viaduct by inserting a camera into cavities within the piers in the viaduct big enough to hold a horse and cart. There were two: a fish-eye lens camera mounted of a long pole was inserted via inspection holes into each pier cavity and photographs taken at 45 degree intervals i.e. from 0 degrees (vertical) clockwise to 315 degrees. Dissappointingly, the images did not show any evidence of a horse and cart, although it was on interest that some upper timberwork left in place after construction still remained.

The Professor then heard from Dr Jim Shipway, great grandson of the designer, Alexander Simpson, that Ewen Macmillan of Borrowdale remembered local hearsay in his father's time that the accident had occurred at Loch-nan-Uamh viaduct. The central pier of Loch-nan-Uamh viaduct was the only one large enough to have accommodated the remains of a horse and cart. In 2001, eleven hours of intensive site work involving transmission of radio waves through walls up to 9 feet thick revealed the remains of the horse, propped vertically against the east wall of the cavity above the wreck of the cart. This seems consistent with the horse having been dragged down into the cavity from about track bed level as the viaduct was nearing completion by a loaded stone cart.

Information from Prof. R Paxton, July 2008.