All roads lead to Benbecula

Eddie Power has this ‘share’ of a blog by MHK Rob Callister who is currently touring the Highlands - lucky him!

https://www.facebook.com/Onchan.MHK/posts/2180745742167873

It brings back memories of wandering the Highlands with the late Mrs M in the late 1970s for over two weeks. Scotland is so vast and empty in places but scenery with contrasts and beauty abundant. I’m am ‘Ireland’ man myself but Scotland ties with North and Mid Wales for second place.

Rob should have mentioned he was going I would have loaned him my copy of ‘The Military Roads in Scotland’ (by William Taylor) which outlines how the English eventually subjugated the Highlands with a network of roads and fortresses. I drove the better half mad stopping the car and leaping out every time I saw the remnants of one of these military tracks.

Nothing much changes as a ‘sage’ on the beautiful Isle of Skye told me back then. ‘All roads lead to Benbecula’ he said as I enquired about the splendid road we had found after wandering the narrow tracks with passing places elsewhere. If Rob gets to Skye he can ask someone what it means!

Image: On 15th November 1999, a small but very unusual engineering feat was performed on a centuries old Delavine bridge in The Highlands of Scotland. Built under the command of Major William Caulfeild as part of the military roads network it had withstood nearly 250 years of floods and the harsh winter weather but slowly the foundations on one bank had been moved nearly one metre downstream, bending the rigid stone structure along its length.

Bernard Moffatt