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Scotland, 1750 – A land of two parts: The Lowlands: civilised, prosperous, wealthy, successful and improving. The other, the Gaelic speaking and clannish Highlands, bruised and brutalised by the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden and whose topography made it wild, remote and all but inaccessible from the rest of Britain. One English visitor gave the following impression of life in the Highlands as follows: “My eyes encountered, in a cluster of mud-built sheds, a number of miserable wretches, ragged, bare-footed and squalid, almost beyond the power of description. Nor was this misery confined to a single spot, for it attended every village I met with”

But in August 1757, in the unlikely setting of a poor shepherd’s cottage by the River Esk in the southern uplands of Scotland, a child was born that would transform the Scottish Highlands in his own lifetime. His father, John Telford died when he was just three months old. His widowed mother, Janet, used charity money to provide her son with a basic education at the local village school. That child was named Thomas.

At the age of fourteen Thomas was apprenticed to Andrew Thomson, a Langholm stonemason who was kindly and skilled. It was a time when trade was bustling and important improvements were taking place: regular roads for wheeled carriages were being constructed to replace old horse tracks, bridges were built over small mountain streams. Thomas avidly drank in all the knowledge and information available, laying down a basic store of experience, capability and understanding that was to stand him in good stead for the rest of his career. In later life he is quoted as saying, “As knowledge is my most ardent pursuit, a thousand things occur which call for investigation which would pass unnoticed by those good easy people who are contented with trudging on in the beaten path, but I am not contented unless I can reason on every particular.”

Despite being brought up in poverty, Thomas was always noted for having a cheerful disposition and sense of humour. In later life, his hearty guffaw earned him the nickname “Laughing Tam”. But his relentless pursuit of knowledge and a punishing work regime left him little time for socialising. He never married. Once his apprenticeship was over in 1780 a young Thomas, aged twenty three, set off on foot to find work in an Edinburgh which had recently been transformed by the New Town of George Street, Queen Street and Princes Street. With his imagination fired, Thomas was introduced to a new discipline: the art of drawing out architectural plans on paper. Immediately realising its importance, he threw himself into studying the ambiguities of plans and elevations, greatly adding to his education and intellectual horizons. Full of confidence, armed with his experience as a stone-mason and with his new-found knowledge, still aged just twenty four, Thomas set out for London, intent on transforming the world. Here his energy and talent attracted the attention of influential men who became his patrons, enabling him to develop his career further. One of these men was Sir John Sinclair who had estates in Caithness and was passionate about improving his native Highlands. He realised that the only way to start was the putting in place of a sound infrastructure. By 1786, aged twenty nine, he had already taken control of many major works. These included the building of roads, bridges and canals. The age of the train had not yet dawned.

With the Highlands beginning to suffer from depopulation due to the hardships, in 1801 the Government decided to act and turned to the trusted engineer who had overseen so many fine works in England, Thomas Telford, now aged forty four, him having previously being called upon to design Ullapool for the British Fisheries Society in 1788. In the first instance he was charged with “ …. The making of harbours on the North Eastern coast subservient to the purposes of commerce with the Northern parts of Europe, and occasionally useful to His Majesty’s Navy. These purposes appear likely to be best answered by the Murray Firth or the Firth of Cromarty ……… You will also examine the most convenient situation for the Erection of Towns or Villages ….” Telford’s extensive surveys also found that hardly any roads existed north and west of the Great Glen, the only ones being Wade’s military roads built for purposes other than the convenience of the population. And so began Telford’s transformation of the Highlands. He set about the project with his customary energy, enthusiasm and zeal, travelling widely throughout the area “ from the tempestuous wilds of Lochaber, on each side of the far famed Johnny Groats, around the shores of Cromarty, Inverness, and Fort George and likewise.” He ended with saying, “ I have now nearly accomplished all the main objects of my mission, and shall be able to make out a plan and surveys of one of the noblest projects that was ever laid before a nation.”

Continuing his interest in harbours and canals, between 1798 and 1825 he built or improved many harbours around Scotland including those at Kirkwall, Wick, Portmahomack, Dingwall, Invergordon, Fortrose, Nairn, Burghead, Cullen, Banff, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Aberdeen, Dundee, Leith, Tayvallich, Portree, Tobermory and Port Logan. One of his greatest visions was the building of a navigation canal linking Inverness to Fort William which became known as the Caledonian Canal. This was achieved between 1803 and 1822, utilising the series of lochs along a natural fault line, building twenty miles of canals linking 60 miles of freshwater lochs. Unfortunately, this was never the success he envisaged due to the fact that significant developments in shipbuilding meant they could not navigate the canal. He also redesigned the Crinan Canal on the west coast. Already dubbed with the nickname, “The Colossus of Roads” by his good friend and eventual Poet Laureate Robert Southey, between 1804 and 1824 he continued with his endeavours in Scotland, building nine hundred and twenty miles of Parliamentary roads which included the following roads: Carlisle to Glasgow; Carlisle to Portpatrick; Fort William to Arisaig; Perth to Inverness; Invergarry to Loch Hourn; Ardgour to Acharacle; Gen Shiel; Dingwall to Lochcarron and Shieldaig; Dingwall to Tongue; Dingwalll to Dornoch, Wick and John o’Groats; Carrbridge to Banff; Fort William to Kingussie; Kyleakin to Portree and Uig; and the “String Road” across Arran. Telford’s roads were expensive but remarkable for their durability, and built on the principles of solid foundations and good drainage. As a natural consequence of road-building, large and wild Highland rivers needed to be bridged, including the Spey and Findhorn.

“Those who are born to modern travelling can scarcely be made to understand how the previous age got on. The state of roads may be judged from two or three facts. There was no bridge over the Tay at Dunkeld or over the Spey at Fochabers or over the Findhorn at Forres. There was nothing but wretched pierless ferries, let to poor cotters, who rowed, or hauled, or pushed a crazy boat across or more commonly got their wives to do it.”

Naturally, these crude craft were subject to the vagaries of the elements. There had been many disasters and loss of life. Bridges designed and built by Telford include The River Don Bridge at Alford, Tongland Bridge, Dunkeld Bridge, Bonar Bridge, Craigellachie Bridge, Ballater Bridge, and Roy Bridge together with Fochabers and Findhorn Bridges. He additionally built Dean Bridge in Edinburgh and Glasgow Bridge at Broomielaw. Not content with concentrating on infrastructure projects alone, in 1823, aged sixty six, at the behest of the Government he also built thirty two “Parliamentary Churches”, nineteen in the Highlands and thirteen in the Islands, each comprising of a T-shaped church and a manse. Some still exist including a fine example at Tomintoul which has been extended from its original footprint. As well as being a sociable and amiable fellow, well regarded by everyone who knew him Thomas enjoyed expressing himself in poetry. He said of his poetry “It is to me, something like what a fiddle is to others, I apply to it in order to relieve the mind after being much fatigued with close attention to business.” Although somewhat nervous of sharing it, he nevertheless had some published, though it is fair to say that it is unlikely that he would ever have become famous for it. On reading an account of the death of ROBERT BURNS, the SCOT POET CLAD in the sable weeds of woe, The Scottish genius mourns, As o'er your tomb her sorrows flow, The "narrow house" of Burns. Each laurel round his humble urn, She strews with pious care, And by soft airs to distance borne, These accents strike the ear. Farewell my lov'd, my favourite child, A mother's pride farewell! The muses on thy cradled smiled, Ah! now they ring thy knell. ---- ten verses and then ---- And round the tomb the plough shall pass, And yellow autumn smile ; And village maids shall seek the place, To crown thy hallowed pile. While yearly comes the opening spring, While autumn wan returns ; Each rural voice shall grateful sing, And SCOTLAND boasts of BURNS. 22nd August, 1796. T.T.

Working to the end, Thomas Telford died peacefully in London, at the end of the summer of 1834, aged seventy seven. As a mark of respect to this most remarkable of men, he is buried in Westminster Abbey. By the laying of a comprehensive and sustainable infrastructure he left behind him a Scotland he had personally transformed, improving the lives of every member of its population.