In partnership with the Fulbright Commission.
In 1819, Thomas Telford and Robert Southey went on a six-week tour of the Scottish Highlands to inspect the region’s newly built roads, bridges and canals. What compelled this unlikely duo, the “Colossus of Roads” and Britain’s Poet Laureate, to undertake one of the greatest road trips of the Picturesque era?
Landscape historian and Fulbright scholar Paul Daniel Marriott explores the legacy of their extraordinary journey, meticulously chronicled by Southey, on travel, transport and design in the twenty-first century.
A lecture by Paul Daniel Marriott recorded on 14 March 2023 at Barnard’s Inn Hall, London.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/telford-highland
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2 Comments
Picturesque Engineering: Telford's Highland Roads and Bridges 1549pm 30.3.23 where have i seen this before..? i was wondering if they do have folk repeat the lectures… or did i watch it via another channel? p.s the mail road. i like that notion. if nothing else the mail must get through – which i like. sadly, we have sabs in our midst, so they need taking to task- even now. cos if the piddling mail can get through – all else follows.
Many thanks for posting this great lecture. I listened to it as podcast whilst out cruising on my bicycle but realised that I was missing some great images. So I’ve just watched it on YouTube. As an Edinburgh engineer I was pleased to see that Prof Marriott’s curiosity was kicked off by his appreciation of the sublimely graceful Dean Bridge.
Robert Southey’s observations of the character of Thomas Telford and the circumstances of the two men becoming acquainted remind me of two other celebrated accounts of historic Scottish tours: James Boswell’s ‘The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, With Samuel Johnson’ (1773)’ and Walter Scott’s account of a cruise around Scotland in 1814, later published as ‘The Voyage of the Pharos’. Scott sailed with Robert Stevenson, of the distinguished Edinburgh family of lighthouse builders.