In 1733, General George Wade, then Commander in Chief of North Britain, is said to have used Rannoch timber to build a bridge across the Tay at Aberfeldy (Steven Carlisle, 1959). The use of Rannoch pine - almost certainly sourced from the Black Woodof Rannoch - for this high-status bridge seems plausible, since the wood lies only some 20 miles from Aberfeldy. The Ta? Bridge was as prestigious in its day as any of the Forth crossings of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Black Wood was then inthe hands of the notorious Jacobite, Alexander Robertson of Strowan, 13th chief of Clan Donnachaidh. While Wade was engaged in the construction of military roads and bridges for the government, Robertson was legally an outlaw, although by then his landshad been released from forfeiture. Why, then, would such an ardent Jacobite furnish a Hanoverian general with the resources to support a mission of Highland pacification and demilitarisation, which would ultimately reduce the power of chiefs such as Robertson?
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