The engineer Thomas Telford, after surveying the crossing, described it in his report as "one of the most forbidding places at which an important ferry was ever established - a succession of violent cataracts formed in a rocky channel exposed to the rapid rush of a tide which has scarcely an equal".
Thomas Telford, after examining the crossing, characterized it in his report as "one of the most treacherous places for a major ferry to operate - a sequence of powerful rapids formed within a rocky channel subject to the forceful surge of a tide with few parallels".