Other routes
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The A82 is just the most conspicuous route where more than one road alignment can be found. Throughout the north and west of Scotland, modern roads (some still being built) take on new courses across the wild moorlands of the Highlands. The new road between Arisaig and Mallaig is one prime example, cutting across the moor a mile to the east of the old road that winds its way along the shore. Further north, the new road from Glengarry to Bunloyne was built when the reservoirs flooded the old route from Tomdoun to Cluanie Inn in the 1950s. The A836 and A838 along the north coast also shows sections of the older road running alongside the modern route.
On the Ardnamurchan peninsula, the authorities of the 1960s went one better, constructing a completely new road from Inverailort through Roshven and Glenuig to Kinlochmoidart. Opened in 1966, this provided an alternative route to Acharacle and points west, and has become an invaluable route for the economy and population of this remote area. Other roads on the peninsula - linking Corran to Strontian and Lochaline - also show old alignments running through the heather to one side. These new roads were mostly built between 1960 and 1980.
The new A830, replacing Telford's road near Druimindarroch. Click to enlarge
Returning to Telford, the road surveyed by his team from Fort William west to Arisaig is another example of three parallel routes. This road (the A830) has been almost completely renewed from The Princes Cairn on Loch nan Uamh through to Arisaig in 2008/9. As the new road has been opened, the old route has been variously left as access drives, grubbed up to leave just a footpath and cycletrack, or removed completely and turfed over.
For the eastern half, this is probably the removal of Telford's road, but to the west of the Druimindarroch turning Telford's road continues due west where the more modern routes turn northwest to follow the railway line. This older route cuts through the small glen that emerges on the coast of Loch nan Ceall about 1.2 km (¾ mile) south of Arisaig village. Along its route a variety of bridges can be seen, and there are several places where retaining walls have been built to hold back the stream which flows alongside. As this road has been no more than a farm track for seventy years or so, it is an interesting study of one of the earliest of Telford's roads, completed in 1806.
A section of Telford's Road alongside the Brunery Burn near Arisaig. Click to enlarge
While these are far more modern examples of road re-alignments, as with the A82 it is a practice dating back nearly two hundred and fifty years. Few of the original military roads were still serviceable by 1800. Some had completely sunk into the bogs of the moorland that they crossed. So when Telford carried out his surveys, even where a military road existed, it was rare for him to follow its course. Some sections may have been used - as at Ba Bridge on Rannoch Moor - where the old road provided some kind of firm base to cross the peatbog, but it was often these very sections where the road had vanished most completely.
