Blogetty Blog 12: On Rannoch Moor.

In order to revisit Rannoch Moor I am obliged to tell an odd anecdote about my French Teacher, Hubert Riley, who was accidentally responsible for my escape from Wellington House, my detested first boarding school.

My family had a social link to Hubert through his sister ‘Fluff” who was married to Arthur Brocklebank, a stockbroking client and close friend of my father’s. In August 1937, Hubert and my father were invited to join the Brocklebank’s for a grouse-shooting party in Scotland. Ill-advisedly, possibly following too much after dinner port, Hubert informed my Papa that ‘he did not like Scotland because there were no nymphs in brown water’.

My father was so astounded by this incomprehensible remark – surely intended as no more than an offbeat pun on the word nymph – that he decided its author was demented and totally unsuitable to educate his son.

He resolved instantly to withdraw me from Wellington House and next term I found myself at St. Peter’s in Seaford. It was a change greatly for the better.

As you may imagine my father’s action caused immediate ructions with Fluff, but this was ignored, maybe even favored, by her husband. For the following August, Arthur Brock invited us as a family to Rannoch Lodge situated at the heart of the wild and desolate 50 square mile Rannoch moor.

The flat terrain was not suitable for driving birds over lines of butts where ‘guns’ wait in concealment, so was ‘walked up’ by guns and keepers in line.

Arthur was kind enough to let me take part with my 4.10 and shoot several grouse which burst from the heather in front of our party as we marched slowly across the heather. It was a huge thrill, at the age of 12, to be trusted not to accidentally shoot my neighbors: not something most shooting hosts would have done.

Believe it or not I still have that shooting hat and wear it daily in my garden despite a hole in the crown and its repellently stained disrepair. It’s 80 years old. You can’t trash a friend like that.

Rannoch moor is crossed by the West Highland Railway which has twice been voted the world’s most scenic. As a boy I didn’t know that this section of the railway, running from Glasgow to Fort William, was built by leading Victorian civil contractors Lucas and Aird. Construction began in 1889 and was completed in 1894.

It was not an easy railway to build, as it crossed some of the most remote and difficult regions of the Highlands. Lack of money meant the line followed many steep gradients and sharp curves, as a more direct route would have required expensive viaducts and cuttings.

 

As you might have guessed the Lucas name introduces one of my relatives: my great grandfather Charles Thomas Lucas. Eldest son of a struggling small London builder he won a scholarship to a Charity school and on graduation gained the confidence and support of his first employer, the eminent contractor Sir Morton Peto, who built the Houses of Parliament.

Charles Thomas went onto build his own immensely successful business which allowed him to buy Warnham Court, his luxurious estate in Sussex, where I spent my early childhood. His remarkable story will be celebrated in future blogs.

Lucas & Aird already had extensive experience building railways. They were favored with Parliamentary approval for the construction of the Welland viaduct linking Kettering in Northamptonshire with Manton in Rutland. The Welland viaduct – an amazing structure of 82 brick arches each with a 40ft span making it the longest masonry viaduct in Britain – was completed in 1878.

A camp of 47 wooden huts was built to accommodate the labor force which numbered 3,500 navvies and 120 horses at its peak. Built entirely by manual labor, 30 million bricks, mostly fired on site, and 20,000 cubic yards of concrete were used in construction. Listed as a Grade 11 building it is now in some disrepair but was recently still used by British Rail for goods trains only.

To give an idea of the extent of their activity during the decade 1881-1890 I note that Lucas & Aird were also engaged in building the Imperial Institute, Queen Alexandra’s House and work on Tilbury and West India docks among many other London projects. They also built the Mid Yorkshire, the North Cornwall, and the Rhonda to Swansea railways; as well the Tyne and Newhaven Docks. Projects abroad included: the Frankfurt gas works in Germany; the Aswan Low Dam in Egypt and the ‘Berber Railway’ in Sudan. (More to come on this bizarre project in another blog.) From little acorns mighty oak trees grow.

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