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Craigellachie Distillery

Telford’s bridge

One of the most famous landmarks in Speyside is Telford's cast iron bridge over the River Spey at Craigellachie.

Responsible for the construction of many bridges, roads and canals including the Suspension Bridges over the Severn and the Menai Straits, Thomas Telford was born in Dumfries in 1757. The son of a poor shepherd, he apprenticed for a time to a stonemason, but then later trained as a surveyor, before moving to London in 1792.
At the start of the 1800s, Telford was asked by the Government to make a survey of Scotland's roads and bridges with the aim of providing better transport and communication links. Over the course of the next eighteen years, 920 miles of capital roads, connected together by no fewer than 1200 bridges, were constructed within the Highlands.

Recognised as one of Britain's finest Civil Engineers, Thomas Telford died on September 2, 1834 and is buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, London.