Glen Lednock Road

When Thomas Telford started his commission on Highland roads and bridges in 1802, he was soon inundated with requests for new roads to be built across the Highland counties. One of the later proposals was for a road from Loch Tay south to Dunblane and Stirling. However, despite surveys being carried out and the road being considered an important and viable route, the land owners concerned couldn't be convinced to part with their money in order to pay for the construction. As such, the road was never built.

More than one route seems to have been surveyed, with only the sketchiest details of the chosen route. However, by looking at the map it is quite easy to give a general description of the only possible route through the hills along the south side of Loch Tay. The benefit of such a route is still clear today, providing a more direct route south from the scattered communities of South Loch Tay, and in Telford's time it would have provided an important and reasonably direct route to the markets at Crieff.

Route

The start point was given as the small settlement of Ardeonaig, which lies a little to the west of the middle of Loch Tay. From here, a track heads southwest up the west bank of of the Ardeonaig Burn, and a little to the east, a path makes a steep climb south east up the hill. They both provide routes across to Glen Lednock, passing either side of Ruadh Mheal. This hill rises to 682m, over 550m from the loch shore, and the pass to the west is higher at about 570m above sea level than that to the east is a little lower at 510m.

Whilst the path is a much steeper climb from Loch Tay, it is generally the more favourable route, being shorter and lower. Also, as the road was never built, it is important to remember that the steepness of the early ascent could have been eased with a series of hairpin bends or by starting further east and taking a long traverse across the hillside.

Across the pass, the path drops into the upper reaches of Glen Lednock, now flooded by a reservoir. Before the dam was built, however, a track ran almost the length of the River, coming to an end roughly where the path marked on the OS map now drops to the water. Whilst it is not know how old this track was, it shows that there was a suitable route down the glen to the track and minor road that still exists below the dam. This leads past Invergeldie into Comrie village.

The route proposed by Telford is listed as running to Dunblane. However, it seems likely that it would have roughly followed the line of the B827 south to Braco, and then picked up the military road line into Dunblane and Stirling. It is quite possible that the route of the B827 was already a well used route, even if it wasn't a properly constructed road, and so it can be assumed that Telford's intentions here were simply to (re)construct a roadway, as he did with the old military roads.