Built to replace the now destroyed “swing bridge” Dunans Bridge was completed in 1815, and predates the 1864 elaboration of Dunans House by Kerr into a Franco-Baronial “castle”. The bridge is the centrepiece of several listed and listable buildings around Dunans House including the Fletcher Mausoleum (C-listed), Dunans Sawmill and Dunans Lodge.

The bridge fulfills three significant functions: the prosaic by crossing the Caol Ghleann, tributary to the Ruel; the monumental by celebrating Wellington’s victory at Waterloo of 1812; and the picturesque by providing a singularly striking approach to the house itself. But it was not for any of these that it was A-listed in 1971: as a three-arch rubble-built bridge designed by Thomas Telford it is nationally, if not internationally important. Evidently, there is not another bridge like it, and although it is of a kind often constructed by Telford, the three arches, gargoyles and eight hexagonal piers, as well as its sheer height 16 metres (or 50 feet), make it unique.

As we near the bridge’s bicentenary we have created the Dunans Charitable Trust to ensure the its future by developing a repair and maintenance programme