These abutments, south of the old mill, show that there have been two bridges here before.
To the north is the Bad Darach bridge that previously carried the main road from Dunoon.
It would seem that the bridges associated with these abutments are older than the Bad Darach bridge and perhaps were, in their time, the main bridges across the Kinglas. A bridge was a major undertaking and it seems unlikely they would have been built so close to another bridge. These bridges would have been associated with the old mill which was an important place in days of old when tenants from all over the estate would bring their cereal to be milled. The mill burned down in 1843 and was recorded as roofless in 1870. There is an information board there.
Journal of My Second Tour in Scotland 1822 (The Wordsworth Trust 1989)
In September 1833 William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy and Dorothy’s sister in law visited Cairndow.
On the morning of Saturday the 22nd of September 1822 Dorothy set off from the Cairndow Inn. Walking past the church she sees “a very rude bridge over the water Kinlass – stream wide and stony. The bridge rough and dangerous, trees laid side-by-side, gaps between and the railing unsteady”. She carries on to the Porter's lodge and walks into the estate where she crosses “a handsome stone bridge” and turns left, walking up the drive. “Having walked through the woods still on a wide smooth road perhaps ¾ of a mile, I now sit upon the ledge of another mossy bridge. At a fearful depth below me the river rumbles over a rocky channel…….. This bridge, which brings to my fancy an arch of a Roman aqueduct has something of grandeur in its desolation, the parapet broken, the way across it overgrown with close grass and grunsel ……… Leaving this romantic spot, I was tempted forward, passing a mill and the Porter's lodge and coming to the bare glen, a 3rd bridge was before me, which leads to the high road along which we travelled last night.
From this description she appears to be sitting on one of the bridges that rested on these abutments.
On Langlands map of 1795 there appear to be three bridges over the Kinglas as described above.
