Fort William - Fort Augustus - Inverness Military Road

NH52SW 11.00 5386 2000 to 5499 2139

(Alternative route from NH 5167 2000 to NH 5499 2378 and a further alternative from NH c. 5148 2000 to NH 5375 2215).

General Wade's Military Road (NAT)

OS 1:10000 map.

NH 5167 2000 - 5499 2378: No evidence of Wade's 1726 road acrosss heavily afforested moorland. From the E-W road at Ault-na-goire (NH 5435 2273), a track, now mutilated by afforestation, runs NE, and at NH 5484 2360, after crossing a burn, a 90m stretch of heather-covered carriageway 3.5m wide revetted on the W side ascends the slope, and has a military road appearance about it.

From cNH 5148 2000 - NH 5375 2215, air photographs (visible on RAF air photgraphs 541/A/399, 4235-7) show intermittantly, a track which, where seen, does not have any military characteristics. Roy's map (W Roy 1747-55) shows the approximate course of a road on this line.

NH 5386 2000 - 5499 2139: There is no evidence for the Wade road having followed the line of the B862 public road.

Visited by OS, March 1979.

The exact line of the original 18th century 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 Gorthleck. Taylor (1976) favours a track running NE from Ault-na-goire, on the Errogie to Inverfarigaig road, in the neighbourhood of NH 5420 2275. According to the J Avery map of 1730 (National Museums of Scotland), the road, having headed N by Lochgarthside, would have crossed the Inverfarigaig to Errogie road about a mile W of Errogie and then traversed the River Farigaig about two miles NE of Inverfarigaig.

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 headed N across the flat ridge of land W of Garthleck and Errogie as far N as Ault-na-goire, and then crossed the River Farigaig at approximately NH 5500 2460.

This section of the road was not fully investigated during the survey. Although an attempt was made to look at a section of track between NH 5445 2300 and NH 5500 2380, there is now a conifer plantation in this area and consequently any remains of a track or path seem to have been destroyed.

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

J B Salmond 1938; W Taylor 1976.