page_title: Old military roads of Scotland
section_title: Rest and Be Thankful
hierarchical_section_title: Old military roads of Scotland / Caulfeild’s Roads / Rest and Be Thankful
caption_attribution_description: English: Glen Croe from the Rest and Be Thankful.
context_page_description: 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 and are commonly referred to as General Wade’s Military Roads or simply as Wade’s Roads.
context_section_description: Construction of a road from Dumbarton to Inveraray was initiated under Caulfeild's command in 1743 but was then interrupted by the rebellion of 1745. Its 44 miles (71 km) which took it via the western side of Loch Lomond, Tarbet, Arrochar and Glen Croe were not then completed until 1749. A stone seat was erected at the summit of the 860-foot-high (260 m) pass at the head of Glen Croe bidding travellers to Rest and be thankful, hence the modern name. Subsequent maintenance was undertaken by the 93rd Regiment, the Sutherland Highlanders until in 1814 the route was handed over to the civilian authorities. William Wordsworth was later to write of this road:
  Doubling and doubling with laborious walk,
  Who, that has gained at length the wished-for height,
  This brief simple way side call can slight,
  And rests not thankful?
  The route of this military road is now broadly followed by the A82 and A83 roads, partly on the original line, partly parallel to it. Where the old military road runs parallel to the new road it is sometimes used as a diversion route.
caption: Glen Croe from Rest and Be Thankful, showing the military road in the valley
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