Fort William - Fort Augustus - Inverness Military Road

NH52SE 13 5500 2139 to 5801 2499

NH 5500 2139 - 5572 2235: There is no evidence for the 1726 Wade road having followed the B862 public road along the N side of Loch Mhor.

NH 5572 2235 - 5665 2293: No trace of any road across fields between Dhuhallow and Errogie.

NH 5665 2293 - 5801 2449: Line following the modern road which continues as a track through an 18th/19th century settlement has been considered as an alternative route for the Wade road.

Visited by OS, June 1964 and September 1977

NH 5500 2378 - 5514 2499: Track through Old Town of Shuien on Roy's map (W Roy 1747-55), is either destroyed by afforestation or overlain by later tracks.

Visited by OS, April 1979.

The exact line of the original military road constructed between 1725 and 1727 is not known and there have been a number of suggestions made over the years. Salmond (1938) believes the road ran roughly parallel to the modern B 862, keeping to the W of Errogie. Taylor (1976) favours a track heading N via Oldtown. The 1726 road is shown on the J Avery map of 1730 (National Museums of Scotland) running alongside the River Farigaig.

The RCAHMS report the observations of the OS, which suggest that the B 862 route is improbable due to being quite tortuous and lacking normal military features, the short stretches of disused track lying along this route adjacent to the modern road possibly being a later road known to have been constructed in the area in the late 18th/19th century. The suggestion is that the road may have been of inferior standard as it was the first Wade road to be built, especially considering the fact that only a few years later it was abandoned in favour of the route beside Loch Ness. The more logical route, avoiding difficult natural features such as awkward river crossings and ravines, would have been heading N from Ault-na-goire on map sheet and crossing the River Farigaig near Oldtown in the neighbourhood of NH 5500 2460.

In the survey the section from NH 5666 2294 to NH 5809 2524 was examined. Heading N from Newlands at NH 5665 2293 as far as NH 5680 2340 there is a modern tarmac road on line, but N of this the route is overlain by a very rutted grass-covered track There were no obvious early or military features visible. It is suggested by the OS that this track is an integral part of post-Clearance crofting settlements, as it runs past the deserted settlements of Charleston, Druimantorran and Ceapmaol.

M Logie (Highland Council) 1997; NMRS, MS/1007/3.

J B Salmond 1938; W Taylor 1976.