Morayshire

Craigellachie

A small Speyside village where the Spey meets the Fiddich, with Telford's graceful iron bridge of 1814, two distilleries and the Speyside Cooperage close by.

Welcome

Craigellachie stands on a rocky bluff where the Fiddich runs into the Spey, the two rivers at the heart of the whisky country.

Its name means rocky hill, and a ferry crossed the Spey here as long ago as 1750. The main street is bright with flowers, and at its foot stands the white Craigellachie Hotel.

Below the village, Thomas Telford's bridge leaps the Spey in a single graceful arch of iron between two castellated towers. It was Scotland's first cast iron bridge, finished in 1814 with ironwork cast in Wales, and it carried the main road for a century and a half. There is parking close by, and you can stand on the deck or look up at it from the riverbank.

Whisky is all around: Craigellachie Distillery in the village, The Macallan across the river, and the Speyside Cooperage on the Dufftown road, where barrels are made and mended. The Speyside Way passes through too.

Before you go

A village and an old bridge, open to walk at any hour.

Where: Where the Fiddich meets the Spey, north of Aberlour.
Bridge: Telford, 1814.
Walk: On the Speyside Way.

Did you know

A cast-iron arched bridge with castellated stone towers spans the River Spey beside a wooded cliff, a pebble riverbank stretching along the near shore.

Did you know

It rode out the great flood.

Telford sited the bridge five feet higher than planned, and it was the only bridge to survive the Muckle Spate of 1829.

A weathered stone tower with battlements bears a plaque reading "Cast at Plas Kynaston, Ruabon, Denbighshire" and a date stone marked "1814", pine trees rising on the wooded bank behind.

Did you know

Cast in Wales.

A plaque on one of the towers records that the bridge's ironwork was cast at Plas Kynaston, near Ruabon.

Ben Lerwill

From our guide to Moray

Where the Spey meets the Fiddich, you’ll find the pretty village of Craigellachie, a centuries-old settlement famed for its pubs, its cast-iron bridge (the oldest of its kind in Scotland) and its whisky heritage. Two single malt distilleries are found here, as is the Speyside Cooperage. As a village in which to sip a dram and watch the water flow past in the dusk, it’s hard to beat.

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