Drochaid Sgainnir

The Drochaid Sgainnir carries the A830 across the Dubh Lighe between Kinlocheil and Glenfinnan. It's name, translated into English, is Bridge of Scandal, although the origins of this name seem to be lost in time. What seems certain is that there was once a sizeable community living on the banks of the Dubh Lighe, with Drimsallie Mill a short distance upstream apparently serving both as a sawmill and cornmill in the past.

The current bridge is a fairly ordinary concrete span, built on a skew and carrying a wide S2 road in a long sweeping bend. Thanks to the river banks growing thickly with trees, it is difficult to get a view of the bridge, indeed if it wasn't for the pavements either side of the road drivers would be forgiven for not knowing there was a bridge there at all.

The old bridge

The old Bridge

A short distance upstream lies an older bridge, albeit not the original. The first bridge across the Dubh Lighe here would almost certainly have been that built under the direction of Thomas Telford as part of his commission on Highland roads and bridges in 1804. However, the surviving old bridge is of steel girders between concrete abutments, not a single stone arch. This old bridge presumably dates from the 1930s, if not later, and has apparently replaced Telford's arch which appears to have stood in the same place.