The village of Tomintoul lies above the River Avon, nestled in the foothills of the Cairngorms, and is reputedly the highest village in the Highlands. It is little more than a long main street stretching either side of a central square, although modern development is starting to fill out the backlands and encroach on the land beyond the back lanes. There is a grid iron plan, albeit one of just 3 parallel streets within which the older development lies. The main street was originally built in the 1750s by Major Caulfeild as his military road from Braemar to Fort George near Inverness. The village started to develop later, initially as a service point for the new travellers on the road, but is now a tourist destination with 2 distilleries nearby, and the Lecht Ski Centre to the south.
Roads
The main road through the village is the A939, which follows the military road along the norther part of the main street. However, for some reason just south of The Square, it TOTSOs north east to leave the town, despite the military road continuing, latterly as a forest road, through to meet the A939 again. Shortly after leaving the village, the A939 TOTSOs a second time, this time with the B9008 continuing ahead to Glen Livet and Dufftown, whilst the A939 returns to a south easterly direction as it starts the long ascent to the Lecht.
Heading north out of Tomintoul, the A939 also diverts away from the line of the military road, although this is a more sensible deviation as the road now follows the river rather than climbing up and over a hill. About 2 miles to the north, the road crosses the river at Bridge of Avon and just before doing so it meets the B9136 which takes a different route through the hills to Glenlivet, the B9008 and ultimately Dufftown.
