Location

Map and Directions
To view an online map of the Bonar Bridge area please click the following link ( the red circle indicates the Bridge Hotel) Map of the Bonar Bridge and surrounding are.

(PLEASE NOTE: www.multimap.co.uk provide detailed directions from any where in the U.K. using their Directions Service.)

About Bonar Bridge And The Local Area
The Bridge Hotel, Bonar Bridge is about an hours drive north of Inverness set in the beautiful surrounds of Sutherland. Within a short distance there are many great golf courses as well as excellent fishing, walking, mountain biking and canoeing along with lots of great day trips and many places of interest.

The village of Bonar Bridge is situated on the banks of the Kyle of Sutherland and is very central to places of interest for the visitor. Dornoch is 20 minutes drive away with award winning beach, bowling green, tennis courts and gardens not forgetting the famous cathedral where Madonna's son Rocco was christened. See our local attractions page for more information.

Bonar Bridge used to be called just "Bonar" until completion of the first bridge across the Kyle of Sutherland in November 1812. The 1812 bridge, built by Thomas Telford was the first of three on this site. The original was destroyed in a flood in 1892 and rebuilt in 1893. The current elegant structure was opened on 14th December 1973. An extremely interesting series of stone and metal plaques placed around a triangular cairn at the village end of the span chart the building of these bridges.

Bonar Bridge is an important local centre with all the services and facilities a visitor might need. There is a corner shop that sells everything but the kitchen sink, local crafts and café, an excellent butcher and a hairdressing salon to name but a few. On the opposite side of the Kyle of Sutherland from Bonar Bridge is Ardgay, complete with a railway station on the Inverness to Thurso line.

The recorded history of Bonar dates back to at least the 1300's, when an iron foundry was established here to make use of iron ore dragged across country from the west coast. The foundry was fuelled with wood from the then plentiful forests on the north-eastern side of the Kyle of Sutherland. By the time James IV passed this way during one of his many pilgrimages to the Chapel of St. Duthus at Tain, in the years around 1500, deforestation was gathering speed. He decreed the cleared land should be replanted with oak trees, some of which still exist east of Bonar Bridge.

Other notable moments in local history include a disaster involving the ferry that preceded the bridge in 1809, with many lives lost. In the mid 1800's the area was badly affected by some of the most brutal of the clearances, as landowners simply forced people off the land to make way for more profitable sheep. Ten miles due west of Bonar Bridge up a very minor road lies Croick. The churchyard of Croick Church was temporary home to 80 refugees cleared off their land in May 1845.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that Bonar Bridge, or more accurately Ardgay opposite, forms one end of a 33-mile walk crossing Scotland from coast to coast. This ends at Inverlael, at the head of Loch Broom, south of Ullapool.