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Author retraces Highland journey by Telford and Poet Laureate


By Alan Hendry

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The book shows Thomas Telford to have been a fully rounded character with a love of poetry and the natural world.
The book shows Thomas Telford to have been a fully rounded character with a love of poetry and the natural world.

He was the “Colossus of Roads”, builder of harbours, bridges and canals, a mighty figure in the Industrial Revolution who is one of the most celebrated civil engineers of all time. In the many communities where he made his mark – not least in Caithness – his legacy lives on and his name is still revered.

Yet there was much more to Thomas Telford (1757-1834) than his seemingly tireless devotion to work, prodigious though his output was. In a new book about the great man, author Paul A Lynn looks beyond what he considers to be Telford's somewhat one-dimensional reputation and portrays him as a fully rounded character with a sense of humour, a fondness for poetry, a love of the natural world and "a talent for mixing with Highlanders both haughty and humble".

A Scotsman Returns: Thomas Telford in the Highlands and Islands, from Whittles Publishing of Dunbeath, is a combination of biographical material about Telford and a travelogue that revisits places in the Highlands and Islands where he worked over a period of 20 years.

Parts of the book centre on an extensive six-week tour of the region made by Telford and the Poet Laureate Robert Southey in 1819, and the author explains how his perceptions of Telford were changed by reading Southey's journal which remained unpublished for a century. "The poet’s interest in engineering and the engineer’s love of poetry had brought them together, and they got on famously," Lynn writes.

Cover design for A Scotsman Returns: Thomas Telford in the Highlands and Islands, by Paul A Lynn (Whittles Publishing).
Cover design for A Scotsman Returns: Thomas Telford in the Highlands and Islands, by Paul A Lynn (Whittles Publishing).

After working in England and Wales, Telford was called back to his native Scotland to address a range of social problems afflicting the Highlands and Islands, notably unemployment and depopulation. Highlanders were feeling dispirited by poverty and suppression following the two Jacobite uprisings, compounded by living in areas almost totally isolated from the rest of Scotland.

The book seeks to show how Telford's programme of work in the Highlands and Islands – from road-making and bridge-building to the construction of the Caledonian Canal – had a profound and lasting influence on the region's social history.

Lynn, a professional engineer, is author of World Heritage Canal, The Lighthouse on Skerryvore and Scottish Lighthouse Pioneers and has built up a wealth of knowledge of the maritime and civil engineering heritage of northern Scotland. A Scotsman Returns gives an insight into Telford's prominent role in the rise of Wick as a major herring port through the engineer's close links with Sir William Pulteney – politician, landowner and governor of the British Fisheries Society, after whom (of course) Pulteneytown was named.

Pulteneytown harbour around 1863. Telford’s design for Wick 'included everything needed by a self-contained fishing community', says Paul A Lynn. © The Wick Society / Johnston Collection
Pulteneytown harbour around 1863. Telford’s design for Wick 'included everything needed by a self-contained fishing community', says Paul A Lynn. © The Wick Society / Johnston Collection

The Scottish herring industry "grew with lightning speed in the 19th century", Lynn writes, thanks largely to the development of new harbours. "Telford started a lifelong connection with the British Fisheries Society in the 1790s, giving free advice on many projects including a new settlement and harbour at Wick, completed in 1811."

Sir William had admired Telford’s previous work and appointed him architect of a new town and harbour for the society on the south bank of the Wick River. A priority, Lynn says, was "a decent bridge" and Telford came up with a design for a three-arched masonry crossing.

Telford’s design for Wick "included everything needed by a self-contained fishing community". Lynn writes: "Pulteneytown is considered by many to be Wick’s hidden gem, a fine example of Telford’s talent as an architect and planner... Pulteneytown can still be imagined as the heart of a 19th-century fishing port. And if you have time to spare, consider a visit to the Wick Heritage Museum, perhaps followed by a wee dram of Old Pulteney from the famous distillery, founded in 1826."

Thomas Telford's Caledonian Canal which opened in 1822. Picture: Alison White
Thomas Telford's Caledonian Canal which opened in 1822. Picture: Alison White

However, the story of Telford's contribution to Caithness goes beyond the county town. Lynn notes how Telford’s final piece of road-making in the area was between Wick and Thurso, the route of the present-day A882/A9.

"On the way he built a handsome bridge over the Wick River at Watten," Lynn writes. "Most British villages have interesting histories and personalities, and Watten is no exception: it was put on the 19th-century map by Telford’s infrastructure, and one of the houses at the village crossroads started life as a tollhouse on his new road."

The arrival of Telford’s road in Thurso hastened the town’s expansion, Lynn says, although not to the extent of a large harbour and fishing fleet because, in the age of sail, the Pentland Firth "had a dreadful reputation among sailors and fishermen, especially when its swirling tidal races were met by a contrary gale".

The present Wick Bridge, a wider version of Telford’s three-arch crossing, was completed in 1877. Picture: Alan Hendry
The present Wick Bridge, a wider version of Telford’s three-arch crossing, was completed in 1877. Picture: Alan Hendry

While recounting the huge growth of the herring industry, Lynn also assesses the reasons for its demise. "The fish were caught in huge quantities off Scotland’s east coast in winter and spring, and off the north coast and Shetland in summer. Boat crews followed the fish up the coast, backed up on land by itinerant teams of ‘herring girls’ who gutted, salted, and packed the ‘silver darlings’ in barrels. By mid-century tens of thousands of boats were engaged in the trade, spurred on by new railways that gave fast access to markets at home and abroad.

"At the peak of the herring boom in 1907, two and a half million barrels of fish were cured and exported, mainly to markets in Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia. So by the 1920s the fishery, unregulated and heavily overexploited, was unsurprisingly drifting towards collapse."

The silver darlings have gone from Wick, but Telford's harbour is still very much a focal point for the town – now as a marina and offshore wind farm base. Reminders of his work are all around, such as the Telford Trail signboards that invite walkers to explore some of the history associated with him. A Scotsman Returns offers a chance to reflect on what Telford achieved in this part of the world, and perhaps assess the man himself in a new light.

  • A Scotsman Returns: Thomas Telford in the Highlands and Islands, by Paul A Lynn, is published by Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath (£18.99, softback, 240 pages, illustrated with more than 200 photos and maps).
The former tollhouse in Watten. Picture: DGS
The former tollhouse in Watten. Picture: DGS

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