Dava Military Road
Start location: A939, west of Dava (NH 997 391)
End location: A940, south of Braemoray Lodge (NJ 000 424)
Geographical area: Moray
Path Type: Military Road
Path distance: 3.75km
Accessibility info: Suitable for pedestrians
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Route DescriptionIf anyone has walked this route recently and would like to send us a survey, we'd be very pleased to hear from them.
OS Landranger 27 (Nairn & Forres)
Heritage Information
This section of military road is part of the Grantown on Spey to Forres road and was built as a link to join with the Coupar Angus to Fort George road just west of Dava. William Taylor in The Military Roads in Scotland was not sure of the road's date but thought that it was probably built by Caulfeild and it must have been after the Coupar Angus to Fort George road was built. This implies that it was likely to have been built after 1757, when the Coupar Angus road was completed, and by 1767, when Caulfeild stopped building roads.
There are few remains of the old road in situ but some of the drainage ditches are visible occassionally. Taylor and Skinner noted a milestone's existence at NH 996 396 in their 'Road from Forres to Grantown' strip map of 1776 but that is now lost. If anyone locates this stone then we would be very grateful to hear of it.
There were three wells recorded along this stretch of road by the Ordnance Survey in 1873. The first was called Auchendare Well and was located just off the path near the Burn of Lochentutach, the second was simply called well and was just south of the ford over the Dorback Burn and the third was named Weaver's Well and was between Kerrow and the A940.
Interestingly, a succession of roads can be seen running north of Dava above the Dorback Burn. This military road is the first, but the drier Dava to Knock of Braemoray road which superceded it is visible to the east of the burn above the present A940.
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