Ruthven Barracks

I have been wanting to take a picture of this for quite some time, and one day I will turn off the A9 in order to walk round the ruin of one of the four forts imposed upon the Great Glen after the 1715 Jacobite rising.

The others have virtually disappeared, but this ruin remains, perhaps because it has been a ruin since 1746 when it was destroyed by the Jacobite forces as they themselves disintegrated after Culloden. 

It is on the site of a more ancient castle, or castles,  and of course it overlooks the main road north,  which was one of the reasons for its existence.   The roads built by General Wade in the 1720s were not for the convenience of the population but in order to ensure that troops could move speedily from one part to another in order to deter any attempt at further  insurrection.

However they did in time prove of local economic advantage, leading to that verse that was allegedly inscribed on a stone somewhere south of Inverness 

Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade,


and  modern Sat Nav sometimes remind us of his extraordinary achievement  by flagging parts of the A83  -  amongst other routes -  as being part of  "General Wade's Military Road".


Wade himself was an interesting individual , with a very distinctive biography.  He  was MP for Bath whilst engaged on military road building  in the role of Commander in Chief in Scotland , went on to have a distinguished military career but finally retired just after the Jacobite troops turned back at Derby in 1745, being succeeded by the Duke of Cumberland, of unhappy memory.