Speyside Way: Boat o' Brig to Craigellachie

The name Boat o’ Brig derives from the fact that there was in medieval times a wooden bridge here, the Pons de Spe. It was built by Muriel de Polloc, Lady of Rothes, and her further gift of land supported the nearby Hospital of St Nicholas – a hostel run by monks for travellers using her bridge. When Lady Muriel's bridge collapsed, a ferry was provided; the ‘boat of the bridge’.

Bridges at Boat o' Brig

Today at Boat o' Brig the river is spanned by road and rail bridges. The first road bridge of modern times was a suspension one, designed and built by a naval captain called Samuel Brown and opened in 1830. It was paid for by local landowners, along with the handsome small tollhouse with its Doric columns which still stands here.

The modern road bridge carries the B9103 which leads east to Keith and west to Rothes. The railway bridge was designed by another great Victorian engineer, Joseph Mitchell. His 1858 approach arches are still there, but the river is now crossed by a later steel truss, erected in 1906. It would be nice to think that in time ScotRail might be persuaded to provide a halt for walkers at Boat o’ Brig.

Roe Deer

The Wood of Ardentilly isn't much used by walkers other than on the (not heavily trafficked) Speyside Way. In the absence of any forestry operations it's a peaceful place where walkers may well encounter the roe deer, Britain's second largest (after the red deer which the very lucky may spot in the walk's final stages). They are mostly active at dawn and at dusk. When alarmed, their cry is something between a bark and a cough.

The male (known as buck or roebuck) has short antlers, backwards-curving, with up to 3 or 4 points: the female (doe) has none. The speckled fawns are born in June. Like most deer (but unlike the red deer) the roe is adapted to life in the woodland. One encountered in Ardentilly bounded across the track carrying an uneaten twig of birch leaves! Today roe deer are thriving in our quieter woodlands and sometimes damaging them by overgrazing; they are even spreading into the suburbs. But before you pick up your gun bear in mind that Bambi was, in the original books by the Austrian Felix Salten, a roe deer faun. It was Hollywood that changed him into an American white-tailed deer.

The Speyside Way climbs up behind the toll house to join a track. Just up left, it turns up a grassier old track leading towards Bridgeton Farm. Before the farm it bends left. At a wider track it turns left away from the farm, and then sharply right, to enter the forest on the western slopes of Ben Aigan.

The path passes close to the Speyside Gun Club’s range: firing is taking place if red flags are flying. The path itself is quite safe, which is something of a relief. The next section of path is along the forest edge, giving good views, before entering the forest and climbing steadily through natural woodland to join a broad track around the deep side valley of the Allt Daley.

Two further, smaller side valleys are rounded. After them a short diversion leads to a seat at a viewpoint giving a magnificent and somehow unexpected panorama of the whole of the lower river valley and the coast. It is a lovely scene with a mixture of farmland and woods, the Spey winding through and the sea beyond. In very clear conditions you can pick out the mountains of Sutherland and Caithness.
The track heads steadily downhill, across another stream. Soon after this take a side-track downhill, to join a minor road.

This road is followed for nearly 3 miles (5km) to Craigellachie, passing Ardendilly House with its double row of neat stone toadstools lining the drive.

The Spey is regularly seen but not approached on this section, which ends by crossing the River Fiddich at the Fiddichside Inn, to enter Fiddich Park. A small camp site for walkers is provided here, and toilets from Easter to October. Here is a three-way Speyside Way signpost, as the Dufftown Loop now heads away to the left. The main Speyside Way bears right to a bridge back under the main road.