B8087
B8087 | ||||
Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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From: | Scalasaig (NR394941) | |||
To: | Kiloran (NR390966) | |||
Distance: | 1.7 miles (2.7 km) | |||
Meets: | B8086, B8086 | |||
Former Number(s): | A871 | |||
Highway Authorities | ||||
Traditional Counties | ||||
Route outline (key) | ||||
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The B8087 is the shortest of Colonsay's three classified roads
Route
The road starts at the same curious crossroads junction as the B8086 in Scalasaig, the island's main village. A short distance along an apparently unclassified road to the east is the Ferry Pier, but the B8087 heads north along the rugged coast at first. The island hall and post office are passed, and a left turn leads to a few houses and the island brewery (no distillery here, despite being so close to Islay!). The road then starts climbing, past the rest of the houses in the village, some accessed off a track on the right, before turning inland and climbing more steeply to reach a summit of just over 70m.
The descent is more gentle, winding slowly down past Turraman Loch, before a couple of hairpins drop it down further past a derelict cottage to Loch Fada (one of three). The section between the two hairpins is part of the old road to Kiloran, which crossed the hills from the other side of Scalasaig; the current, lower, hill route apparently being built in the 1950s, although the next section does appear to be older. From Loch Fada, a near straight run takes the road across a low-lying plain to Kiloran, and after a sharp bend the end of the road is reached. The junction with the B8086 is a triangle, as the other road sits considerably higher up the hill.
History
This route was originally classified in the mid 1920s as the A871. However, along with all of the roads on Colonsay it was downgraded to a B road between 1988 and 1993.
The history of the route, as noted above, starts further west along the B8086 at Scalasaig Farm, climbing steeply up over the shoulder of Beinn nan Guidairean and reaching a summit of around 90m. The old road is still there, as a rough track after the last house at the Farm, and can be walked over the top to Turraman Loch, where it meets the current line of the B8087. After a short straight run (going in the 'wrong' direction', the old road continues ahead, again as a track, running up the east side of Loch Fada, before curving through the woods and doubling back to the east of Colonsay House. The old road then meets the new line at the cottages just before the final short run to the junction with the B8086.
The precise chronology of the changes to the route are difficult to pin down, in particular with the northern section where the maps are too small to identify which route was followed, and the early OS One Inch sheets colour both options the same. The current coastal route of the B8087 is first shown on the OS One Inch map from 1927 as a through route, although left uncoloured so suggesting a rough track. Prior to that, it had been marked as a road or track past the houses, but only a path as it turned inland. It is still only shown as a track on the 1942 sheet, but is the route of the A871 by 1956, which is also the first map to definitively show the A871 on the western line to Colonsay House.
B8087 | ||||
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