Great Glen Way: Fort William to Gairlochy

Fort William

Fort William is a small town that nestled in the knuckle formed by the junction of Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil. It forms an important strategic point as the low ground of the Great Glen meets the sea at the knuckle.

In historic times the main settlement was slightly north of the present town at the 13th Century Inverlochy Castle; there was little settlement at the location of the current town.

In 1654 a timber fort was built just to the south of Inverlochy Castle in to help control the local population; in 1690 this was replaced with a stone fort named 'Fort William' after King William III. The influx of money caused by the fort led to a settlement building up around it, and this soon took the name of the fort. In fact the town has had several names over the years; Maryburgh, Duncansburgh and Gordonsburgh. None of these stuck and the locals continued to call it 'Fort William'. The town's growth started to increase once the railway arrived in 1894.

A large factory complex just to the northeast of the town (and on the western flank of Ben Nevis) is the Rio Tinto aluminium smelter. This was commissioned in 1929 and, like the earlier plant in Kinlochleven, uses hydroelectric power to generate the vast amounts of electricity needed to smelt the metal. Most of the water flows from Loch Trieg and other lochs through a massive 15-mile tunnel that was driven through the surrounding hills. A total of 85MW is generated by the scheme, most of which is used by the Fort William smelter to create 40,000 tonnes of aluminium each year.

Although the plant employs about 174 people, the town's largest employer is undoubtedly tourism. Nestling in the lee of the country's biggest mountain, it is a hillwalking, climbing, mountain biking and (in winter) skiing centre, and many of the town's facilities have grown around that industry.

A statue called 'Sore Feet' in Gordon Square marks the end of the West Highland Way. Another long-distance walk, the Great Glen Way, opened in 2002; this runs from the site of the Old Fort near the railway station.

Ben Nevis

Very few of the mountain tops in Scotland are well known to the public; some superb hills are virtually unknown outside the massed ranks of hillwalkers who climb them. There is one glaring exception, however: the highest mountain in Britain, Ben Nevis.

The granite bulk of Ben Nevis stands 4,409 feet (1,344 metres) above the sea at Loch Linnhe. Most people climb the mountain using the relatively easy route called the Pony Track (also as the Tourist Track), which was constructed in 1883.

Unfortunately the summit of the mountain can only be called a mess. If you are lucky enough to climb it in good, cloudless weather - itself a rarity - then you get view of Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil far below. The summit itself is a mass of rocks, some of which have been collected into little cairns.

A trig pillar standing proudly atop a cairn marks the very top; this is near to a little collection of stones that form an emergency shelter. This is all that remains of a remarkable Victorian undertaking - an observatory that was kept fully-manned year round from 1883 to 1904; the aforementioned Pony Track was constructed to supply the observatory. Hourly measurements were taken, except when the snow was too deep to allow the men on duty to exit the buildings!

Many walkers on the West Highland Way take an extra day off to climb the mountain after completing the trail. The Pony Track is not a particularly hard route and is invariably popular in good weather during the summer, but care needs to be taken. Some deep gullies on the summit can capture careless walkers in fog, so always carry a compass and know how to use it.

Sadly it is hardly a classic hillwalk; there are far better mountains in the area, yet alone Scotland. If you want a harder - and better - day then climb Ben Nevis via the standard Pony Track and extend the walk by crossing the Carn Mor Dearg Arete to reach its neighbouring summit, Carn Mor Dearg. Some scrambling is necessary on the arete. A hard descent leads from there back down to the Pony Track. Extreme care, good directions and careful compass work is needed on this walk.

Inverlochy Castle

Inverlochy Castle is a ruined castle situated about a mile north of Fort William. It was built in the 13th Century by the Comyns and was the scene of two battles.

The 1431 battle was fought between the Clan Donald and the Earls of Caithness and Mar. The Donalds were one of the group of clans who controlled the west coast of the Highlands (called the 'Lords of the Isles'), whilst Mar and Caithness wanted to subsume that powerful Lordship into the Scottish Crown. The Donald's archers made short work of the combined army, although the start of the end for the Lords of the Isles occurred soon afterwards when they lost the Battle of Harlaw.

The second battle occurred during the Civil War in 1645. Royalist forces under the control of the Earl of Montrose defeated Covenanter forces led by the Duke of Argyll. The 1645 battle led to the downfall of the castle; Oliver Cromwell had a fort built nearby and the castle fell out of use. Some impressive stone ruins still remain.

A new castle was built nearby in 1836; this is now a luxury hotel.

Fort William's railways

Fort William was a relatively small settlement before the railway line from Glasgow opened on the 7th August 1894. In 1901 a branch line was opened through spectacular scenery to the fishing village of Mallaig further to the west. The town has a special place in the hearts of railway enthusiasts; not only is it the endpoint for the Caledonian Sleeper service from London Euston, but steam trains regularly run along the line to Mallaig during the summer months (the Jacobite service). Youngsters will know the line as being the route used by the Hogwarts Express.

Most of the stone fort was demolished to make way for the railway and only a few low stone walls remain. However the station was not in its current position when the line opened; instead it was next to a small pier at the southern end of the town. Unfortunately this prime position meant that the railway separated the town from the shore of Loch Linnhe. In 1975 a new station opened in its present location slightly to the north of the town; sadly the new station is ugly grey concrete rather than the old stone and brick building. Instead of the town being separated from the shore by a railway, it is now separated by a dual carriageway.

Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway

The Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway was a large network of railway lines built in the 1920s to help construct the tunnel that links Loch Treig with the hydroelectric power station in Fort William. The line was steeply graded to get through the hills, and was kept in service for maintenance of the works until a landslide severed it in the 1970s. A branch of the line headed through Inverlochy to reach the pier on Loch Linnhe in Fort William; rails can still be seen embedded within its surface, and there are other signs of the railway in the area.

A website displays photos of the remains of the line.

Corpach timber mill

Until the 1960s Corpach was very much a satellite village to Fort William, nestled at the northern edge of the corner of Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe. It grew slightly in size in the 1820s when the Caledonian Canal reached Loch Eil. A quick look at many of the houses in the village shows that they are of sixties and seventies vintage, dating from when a massive saw mill and pulping plant opened in 1964, dealing with the vast amounts of wood that gets generated by Scotland's forests.

Sadly the pulping mill closed in 1981

The Caledonian Canal

The Caledonian Canal should have been one of Scotland's great engineering triumphs. Before its opening, any ship wanting to go between Scotland's two great cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh has to undertake a long journey via the south coast of Britain or a shorter but more perilous voyage around the north coast of Scotland. Many ships were being lost on this voyage, and the line of three large lochs that marks the Great Glen seems like an obvious route for a canal.

Unfortunately the lochs are freshwater and are situated at some height above sea level. This means that the work was much more expensive than would otherwise have been the case, and that the engineers tasked to survey the route did not have an easy task. For one thing it was not going to be a normal canal as it would be able to take seagoing ships. James Watt performed the first survey, and this was followed up by Telford and Josias Jessops.

As is often the case with civil engineering, both time and fiscal estimates were wildly optimistic. The canal took nineteen years to build, finally opening in 1822, and at double the cost. Unfortunately it was outdated almost as soon as it had opened; new sailing and (later) steam ships were too big to fit into the locks. Thus the investors in the canal made a massive loss.

However, their loss is our gain, and the canal still offers boats and small ships a short-cut across Scotland.

Neptune's Staircase

Neptune's Staircase is a flight of eight locks on the Caledonian Canal near Fort William. It rises sixty feet up, taking the canal from Loch Eil to meet the man-made canal cut that leads to Loch Lochy. It is a magnificent structure, the oversize locks giving it a much more impressive look that a flight of locks on a narrow canal could ever manage.

The Great Glen

The Great Glen is a feature unmistakable on any map of Britain. It follows the Great Glen Fault that incises a harsh diagonal line across the Highlands, from Fort William in the southwest to Inverness in the northeast. Various glaciations periods have eroded the fault and formed three large freshwater lochs - Loch Loch, Loch Oich and the famous Loch Ness.

Much of the Great Glen is surrounded by high ground, meaning that the glen forms one of the best low-level routes in the region; it is used by the busy A82 road between the west and east coasts and also the Caledonian Canal. Part of it was also used by the Invergarry and Fort Augustus railway line, which closed to goods just after the Second World War.

The Mallaig Extension

Few railway lines in Britain can lay claim to being one of the best railway journeys in the world; the Settle and Carlisle railway in Yorkshire is a candidate, but the pre-eminent British railway journey has to be along the Mallaig Extension between Fort William and the fishing port of Mallaig.

Railways first reached Fort William in August 1894, allowing for a boom in building in the town. However the railway companies had their eyes set further west towards Mallaig. The connection would take passengers to the ferry terminal for the Western Isles, and also take trainloads of fish from the port back to the towns and cities further south.

The terrain that faced the railway builders was difficult, to say the least. Loch Eil provided an easy route westwards for the first few miles, but after this the line had to tackle the mountains. This led to the creation of one of the line's most famous structures: the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the first concrete viaduct in the world.

The line first opened in 1901, and it soon gained a reputation for being a superb journey. Steam trains regularly travel down the line in summer, and the line gained further fame as being on the route of the 'Hogwarts Express' in the Harry Potter films; the Glenfinnan Viaduct features prominently in several scenes.

If you are lucky enough to be able to spend a few days in Fort William during the summer, then there are two things you must try to do: if you are fit enough, try to climb Ben Nevis, and if the weather is poor take a trip to Mallaig. Neither option will disappoint.

Torcastle

Tor Castle is a ruined castle situated about three miles to the northeast of Fort William, trapped between the River Lochy to the east and the Caledonian Canal to the west. There have been several castles on the site over the years, the last being built by the Camerons in the 1530s before they moved to Achnacarry.

It is alleged that this is Banquo's castle (Banquo being the basis for Shakespeare's MacBeth). The surviving castle is very ruined and overgrown with no public access.

Loch Lochy and the River Lochy

Loch Lochy is the southwestern of the three lochs that dominate the Great Glen. It is nearly ten miles in length but only a mile wide at its widest, where the River Akraig drains into it. It is notable for its 70 metre depth, which belies its origins as a fault.

The River Lochy flows for nine miles from the southwestern end of the loch into the sea at Loch Eil, near Fort William. The makers of the Caledonian Canal eschewed the shallow and winding river, instead choosing to create a new cut to the north.