B9009

Route

The B9009 is a medium-length B-road in south Banffshire.

Milestone on B9009

The route starts in the centre of Dufftown, at a TOTSO with the A941 next to the Tollbooth and heads west along Conval Street. As with all of Dufftown's main streets, Conval Street is wide and lined with a selection of solid, if rather plain old stone houses. The route climbs as it heads west out of the small distillery town, losing the excess width just before the last houses. It then curves slowly south as it undulates gently through fields and into the narrowing Glen Rinnes. There are a scattering of houses along the roadside, and blocks of forestry as the road winds around the lower slopes of the steep hill of Meikle Conval. Now heading south west, the road follows the Dullan Water upstream through the Glen, with fine views across the shallow valley to the hills beyond.

The route climbs steadily, along short straights and round sweeping bends, the landscape remaining fairly constant with green fields in the valley floor and forested or moorland slopes rising above. A couple of distilleries sit prominently above the road, which is otherwise scattered with farms and houses, but nothing resembling a village. Slowly the valley floor rises to meet the road, just before the watershed at around 320m. Here the road briefly turns west as it winds through a short, narrow pass into Glen Tervie, which descends to Glen Livet. Glen Tervie is cloaked with large forestry plantations, with the road hardly emerging from the trees before reaching its end. A couple of hill fields are passed as the road winds down hill, and then it finally emerges just before reaching Auchbreck, its terminus on the B9008.

History

The B9009 was originally much longer, continuing north east from Dufftown to Keith and the A96. However, that part of the route was upgraded to become the A920 in c1945. Later, in the 1970s, the A920 and B9014 swapped routes, with the original eastern part of the B9009 remaining the B9014 today.

The road itself was originally built in around 1794 by the Duke of Gordon as part of his new road across his estate between Dufftown and Tomintoul. This therefore included the southern end of the B9008. Other local roads followed, including the northern portion of the B9008, all characterised by the distinctive cushion-shaped capstones that feature on the numerous bridges along the routes.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Bridge of Achbreck - Dufftown - Keith