Glenshee to Glenlivet, via Braemar & Tomintoul (A93 / A939)

The route follows the Old Military Road high around the east of the Cairngorm Mountains, across the Shee, Cluny, Dee, Gairn, Don and Avon valleys. One of the finest routes in Scotland.
Major William Caulfield, the British government’s Inspector of Roads from 1732 to 1767, was responsible for building new roads and bridges in the Highlands of Scotland, the aim of which was to bring order to the parts of the country that had rebelled in the Jacobite rising of 1715.
Although not as well known as his predecessor, General George Wade, he led the construction of four times as much road than Wade across Scotland, including this road from Blairgowrie to Fort George, near Inverness.
As well as allowing quicker access for the soldiers to traverse the country it also allowed the drovers and smugglers to move their cattle and goods around.
A warrant to provide Caulfield with gunpowder to make this road was issued in 1748. The following year, 300 men from the Welsh Fusiliers were sent to start work on the road from Blairgowrie and another 300 from General Guise's regiment were ordered to work southward from Braemar, the intention being that both parties should meet at the Spittal of Glenshee. However at the season's end, General Guise's detachment had stopped about two and a half miles to the north of the Spittal and the Blairgowrie party had only reached Dalrulzion. It was not until 1750 that the six remaining miles were completed.
The bridges built during what some have described as the largest civil engineering project in Scotland since Roman times are impressive, and the ones here are no exception. They are thought to have been constructed between 1749 and 1763.
This massive military road building project, begun by W
In 1803, with these roads no longer needed for military purposes (the Jacobite threat having been crushed at Culloden in 1746), and in a state of terrible repair, they passed into the control of the Commission of Highland Roads and Bridges. A new survey was sent north to look at the state of affairs, and to assess what use the roads and the network would serve going forward.
It was drovers, merchants, travellers and the like that now travelled where soldiers once marched; and the roads needed to be upgraded and improved to meet new social and economic requirements. Thomas Telford, the great Scottish engineer was responsible for upgrading, straightening, widening and generally improving the efficiency of the network.
The modern road network of the Highlands evolved from these improvements but the essential plan of the system is still fundamentally based upon the military roads built by Wade and Caulfeild over 250 years ago.
Soundtrack: Capercaillie
Recorded 7 May 2021