History

• ABERCHALDER enjoys some of the most stunning scenery in Scotland in an area steeped in history from Roman, Viking, Medieval & more recent times.

• THE BRIDGE OF OICH built in 1854 & designed by James Dredge in using a sophisticated patented design of double cantilevered chain construction with massive granite pylon arches at either end. It replaced the old sheep drover’s bridge & still carried traffic up to 1932.

• THE GREAT GLEN, cutting diagonally across the Highlands from Inverness to Fort William, follows a major geological fault-line. This huge rift valley was formed when the north-western and south-eastern sides slid against each other along the fault for more than sixty miles, and were later smoothed by glaciers that only retreated around 8000 BC. The glen is impressive as much for its sheer scale as its great beauty, and is a rewarding route between the east and west coast.

• STORIES OF OLD BATTLES, encampments, mass burials and bloody massacres abound. Indeed Bonnie Prince Charlie himself and his army climbed the hill behind the Lodge on his way to Perth after staying overnight in Glengarry Castle. General Wade built roads and bridges connecting the Forts William, Augustus and George in the 18th century.

• IRON ORE was mined from the hills by French prisoners of war, smelted in the Glen and then taken by boat through the lochs, round the Moray coast and down to Newcastle to be cast into canon to fight Napoleon.

• A RAILWAY was built by the local gentry at the turn of the century and it ran from Spean Bridge to Fort Augustus with the intention of continuing up to Inverness. Regrettably, it closed in 1946. There are still old tunnels & bridges to be seen along the way.

• LOCH NESS, most famous of the Great Glen's four elongated lochs, is twenty-three miles long, unfathomably deep, cold and often moody, bounded by rugged heather-clad mountains rising steeply from a wooded shoreline and attractive valleys opening up on either side. Its fame, however, is based overwhelmingly on its legendary inhabitant Nessie, the Loch Ness monster often seen near Castle Urquart.

• LOCHS Oich, Lochy and Linnhe (the latter being a sea loch) are less renowned though no less attractive. All four are linked by the Caledonian Canal, surveyed by James Watt in 1773 and completed in the early 1800s by Thomas Telford to enable ships to pass between the North Sea and the Atlantic without having to navigate Scotland's treacherous northern coast. Only 22 miles of it is bona fide canal - the remaining 38 exploit the glen's natural lochs and west-flowing rivers.