Old military roads of Scotland

A network of military roads, sometimes called General Wade's Military Roads, was constructed in the Scottish Highlands during the middle part of the 18th century as part of an attempt by the British Government to bring order to a part of the country which had risen up in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

The roads were constructed to link the Central Lowlands with a series of fortified barracks located strategically across the Highlands. Their purpose much like the network of roads constructed by the Romans more than 1,500 years earlier was to suppress and exert control over the local population. The engineered roads of the Roman period did not extend into the Highlands, which was where these later roads were constructed.

The first four of these roads were constructed in the 1720s and 1730s under the direction of General George Wade (an Anglo-Irishman) and are commonly referred to as General Wade’s Military Roads or simply as Wade’s Roads.

The network was subsequently expanded considerably under the direction of Major William Caulfeild though his name is now largely forgotten and each of the roads that he had put in place are referred to, on Ordnance Survey mapping for example, simply as "Old Military Road". A further road was constructed by Caulfeild in southwest Scotland in the 1760s.

General Wade was sent to Scotland in July 1724. He reported back in December that "more than half of the 22,000 men capable of bearing arms in the Highlands and Islands were ready to create new troubles and rise in arms to favour the Pretender". In his report Wade pointed out that government troops would benefit from improved roads and river crossings to put down the rebels.

...
Wikipedia