Clunes Wood
Road Bridge (18th Century)
Site Name Clunes Wood
Classification Road Bridge (18th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Calvine 'eye Of The Window' Bridge; Allt A' Chrombaidh
Canmore ID 25142
Site Number NN76NE 19
NGR NN 79058 66793
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/25142
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish Blair Atholl
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
NN76NE 19 79058 66793
On the Wade Road of 1728-30 (Lin 501), a high arched bridge (span 6.20m) over the Allt A Chrombaidh had deteriorated over the years. The upper courses on both sides of the bridge were loose, and there was a bulge in the right hand upstream abutment wall. In 1985 the upper courses generally and the abutment wall for a height of 3m were dismantled and rebuilt course by course. Most of the original masonry was re-pointed. As there was no evidence of parapets, none were included in the rebuilding.
G R Curtis and R L Smith 1987.
NN76NE 19 79058 66793
This bridge is situated in Clunes Wood (approximately 200m N of the new A9 road), and crosses on a roughly E-W alignment a vigorous incised burn named Allt a' Chrombaidh. The bridge forms part of the 18th century military road which ran from Perth, through Dunkeld, to Inverness. It is a Wade bridge and therefore dates between 1725 and 1733.
Its main structural characteristics conform to those of other Wade bridges (G R Curtis, 1980). It consists of a single segmental arch with an approximate radius of 3.4m, a 6.2m span and 4.8m in height below the crown. An overall width of 3.9m falls comfortably within the extremes of 3.35m and 4.27m encountered elsewhere in bridges of this type (G R Curtis, 1980). The parapets have entirely disappeared. The bridge is contrsucted of random rubble masonry, partly laid to courses, and the arch itself is formed with slab voussoirs up to 0.7m in length; the quality of the stonework doubtless reflects the tabular form of the local rock which probably fractured easily to workable slabs. The bridge has plain vertical spandrels on the W abutment; the E abutment springs from a 3.4m high shelf of bedrock.
Because of the position of the bridge within the gorge, the road makes a descending approach from each side, and, unusually for a bridge of this age and type, the carriageway above the arch is level, not hump-backed. A large roadside scoop on the NE side of the E apparoach probably marks the site of a quarry for the road metal and stone for the bridge.
Although apparently structurally sound, the bridge suffers from trees and shrubs which have taken root in the masonry. There were also signs of collapse on the NW upstream abutment on the date of visit.
Visited by RCAHMS (MKO, GJD), June 1985
NMRS MS/744/170
