EHG5181 - Building recording - Bridge over the Allt na Fearna Mor, Creich

In 2014 ARCH provided a number of courses, field trips and other activities exploring and researching the remains of the 19th century engineer, road and church builder Thomas Telford. A project was undertaken in Kyle of Sutherland, during which many sites were visited and photographed by participants. On 27th and 28th September, 2014, as part of an ARCH (Archaeology for Communities in the Highlands) course examining the work of Thomas Telford around the Kyle of Sutherland, 17 people came together to learn about the principles and techniques of building survey. The focus of the two days were two, previously unrecorded, arched stone bridges, located about 5km south of Lairg and bypassed by the present line of the A836 in the early 1990s. The larger of the two bridges, crosses the Allt na Fearna Mor, which forms the boundary between the parishes of Creich and Lairg. This bridge has features which suggest that it was built to Thomas Telford’s specification, as part of the road -finished in 1819 - linking his iron bridge at Bonar Bridge with the north coast at Tongue. Just to the north, a smaller bridge, crossing the Allt na Fearna Beag, has fewer distinguishing features, but provides an interesting contrast. In the field below this bridge, a number of features associated with water management may be linked to the road, but perhaps more likely to the railway, which opened in 1868 and which runs along the west side of the field. The condition of the bridges - particularly the poor state of the Allt na Fearna Mor bridge - precluded detailed measured survey; nonetheless a wealth of material has been produced enabling a more accurate assessment of both bridges. <1> <2>