Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 578377
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/578377
This elegant purpose-built facility for the use and convenience of travellers, formerly known as the Beattock Bridge Inn, was the only one of its kind on the new road. It was designed by Telford, also built by MacDonald, and with the stabling formed a state-of-the-art staging post at Beattock operational from ca.1825. The entry to the stable yard bears the inscription over the arch 'Licensed to let post horses'. Being directly on the line of the road it saved the two miles of travel to and from the previous staging post in Moffat. Externally the building is substantially in its original state with Tuscan columns and entablature at the doorway and, internally, although greatly altered, it is still possible to gain an impression of its spacious utility. Its two chimney stacks are centrally pierced with a semicircular arch, perhaps a more appropriate signature than the quatrefoil at Dinwoodie Toll House. Following the opening of the Caledonian and North British Railways in the late 1840s, use of the staging post declined and eventually the building served as a farmhouse and, more recently, as a restaurant. Its future is presently under review. In a road building context Moffat is also of interest in
having, in the town church yard, the grave of J. L. McAdam who lived nearby at Dumcrieff, where one of
his stone road rollers still survives in the grounds.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
