Picturesque Engineering: Telford's Highland Roads and Bridges

In partnership with the Fulbright Commission.

In 1819, Thomas Telford and Robert Southey went on a six-week tour of the Scottish Highlands to inspect the region’s newly built roads, bridges and canals. What compelled this unlikely duo, the “Colossus of Roads” and Britain’s Poet Laureate, to undertake one of the greatest road trips of the Picturesque era?

Landscape historian and Fulbright scholar Paul Daniel Marriott explores the legacy of their extraordinary journey, meticulously chronicled by Southey, on travel, transport and design in the twenty-first century.

A lecture by Paul Daniel Marriott recorded on 14 March 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/telford-highland

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