Viaduct Loch nan Uamh In Lochaber On Visit To The Highlands Of Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, of the viaduct at Loch nan Uamh in Lochaber on ancestry visit to the Scottish Highlands. It is a railway viaduct that carries the West Highland Line. The viaduct crosses the Allt a' Mhama, or Mama Burn, just before it flows into Loch nan Uamh, a sea loch to the north of the Ardnish peninsula. Around 1898 whilst Concrete Bob McAlpine was constructing the West Highland Railway Line and the viaducts which carry it, one of his horses tumbled down inside a concrete pier, dragging its cart with it. Local legend always held that the accident happened at Glenfinnan, but in 1987 Professor Roland Paxton MBE, having defined only two piers as being large enough, ascertained, by use of a fish-eye lens camera inserted through specially bored holes, that there was no evidence of a horse or cart. Then Professor Paxton heard that local landowner Mr E.D. MacMillan remembered from local hearsay in his father's time that the accident had in fact occurred at the Loch nan Uamh Viaduct. An inspection hole made in 1997 revealed the pier was full of rubble and the story may have ended there, but science moves on and in 2001 a state-of-the-art scanning exercise was carried out. Many hours of work was involved, transmitting radio waves through walls up to 9 feet thick, and monitoring and interpreting the results. Incredibly, clearly seen were the remains of a horse, standing vertically against the east wall above the wreck of a cart. This would imply that the loaded cart fell into the cavity, dragging the horse with it. Prince Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, embarked from Loch nan Uamh for France from Scotland on 20 September 1746 following the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1745. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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