Achnacarry Castle
Achnacarry Castle stands on the western shore of Loch Arkaig in the Great Glen of the Scottish Highlands, roughly seven miles northeast of the village of Gairlochy and accessible by a single-track road through some of the most dramatic forested landscape in Britain. It is the ancestral seat of Clan Cameron, one of the most storied Jacobite clans in Scottish history, and has been the home of the Chiefs of Clan Cameron — the MacSorlies of Lochiel — for centuries. The castle is not open to the public as a tourist attraction in the conventional sense, as it remains a private family residence, but it draws a steady stream of visitors drawn by its extraordinary historical resonance, its connection to both Bonnie Prince Charlie and the wartime Special Operations Executive, and the sheer beauty of its setting. For those with a deep interest in Scottish history or Highland culture, it is one of the most genuinely significant private estates in Scotland.
The current castle, a substantial baronial-style mansion built in 1802 by the architect James Gillespie Graham for Donald Cameron of Lochiel, replaced an earlier structure that was burned to the ground by Hanoverian forces under General William Blakeney in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden in 1746. That destruction was a deliberate act of retribution, for the Camerons of Lochiel had been among the most committed Jacobite supporters during the 1745 rising. Donald Cameron, known as "Gentle Lochiel," had actually needed some persuasion by Bonnie Prince Charlie before committing his clan to the cause, yet once pledged, the Camerons fought with distinction at Prestonpans and Culloden. After Culloden, Lochiel escaped to France, the castle was reduced to rubble, and the estate was forfeited. The family eventually recovered their lands, and the rebuilding of the castle in the early nineteenth century was an act of both practical and symbolic restoration.
The castle's most remarkable twentieth-century chapter came during the Second World War, when the estate was requisitioned by the British government and became the primary training ground for No. 4 Special Training Centre, commonly known as the Commando Basic Training Centre. From 1942 onwards, thousands of Allied commandos — and later, operatives from the American Office of Strategic Services — were put through some of the most brutal and innovative military training ever devised in the hills, rivers, and forests surrounding Achnacarry. The estate's remote, rugged terrain made it ideal for this purpose. Many soldiers who trained there recalled it with a mixture of dread and pride for the rest of their lives. The Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge, a few miles to the south, stands in honour of all those who trained in this landscape, and the Commando Exhibition at the nearby Clan Cameron Museum on the estate provides detailed accounts of this period.
Physically, the castle is a handsome grey stone structure built in the Scottish baronial manner, with turrets, crow-stepped gables and a commanding presence above its wooded grounds. It sits within a designed landscape of mature specimen trees, many of them enormous, which soften what might otherwise feel like a forbidding Highland fortress into something more intimate and almost romantic in atmosphere. The approach road along the River Arkaig and through the Dark Mile — a famous avenue of ancient beeches whose intertwined canopy creates an almost tunnel-like passage — is one of the great theatrical approaches to any historic estate in Scotland. The Dark Mile, or An Raon Dorcha, has its own legends, including a supposed connection to the witch-like figure of the Cailleach and to Jacobite fugitives who used it as a cover for escape.
The surrounding landscape is extraordinary by any measure. Loch Arkaig itself stretches for twelve miles to the west, a long, narrow ribbon of dark water framed by steep hillsides, and is one of the least-visited and most atmospheric lochs in the Highlands. The area is rich in red deer, pine marten, golden eagle and osprey, and the forests include some of the finest surviving Caledonian pinewoods in Scotland. To the south, Ben Nevis and the Nevis range are clearly visible on clear days, and the Great Glen — running from Fort William in the south to Inverness in the north — provides a grand geographical context for the whole area. The village of Spean Bridge, about eight miles to the south, is the nearest settlement of any size and has hotels, a pub and shops.
Access to the estate is managed and visitors are generally able to walk along the public road through the grounds to reach the Clan Cameron Museum and the ancient burial ground of the Cameron chiefs on the nearby island of Eilean Munde — or rather, the burial ground on the north shore of the loch adjacent to the castle. The Clan Cameron Museum, housed in a building on the estate, covers both the clan's long history and the commando training period, and is open seasonally, typically from Easter through October. The castle itself is a private home and cannot be entered, but respectful visitors exploring the estate grounds and museum are welcomed during opening hours. The best approach by road is from Gairlochy, turning north off the B8005 and following the single-track road along the River Arkaig. There is limited roadside parking near the museum. Public transport to this part of the Highlands is sparse, and a car is essentially necessary.
One of the more haunting and lesser-known details associated with Achnacarry concerns the so-called Loch Arkaig Treasure — a substantial quantity of French gold, amounting to around thirty thousand Louis d'or, which was landed on the Scottish coast in 1746 to support the Jacobite cause but arrived too late to make any difference. The treasure was concealed somewhere in the hills above Loch Arkaig, and what became of it has never been fully established. Some of it was disbursed to Jacobite clan chiefs, some was apparently stolen, and some may still remain buried in the hills according to persistent local legend. The treasure became a source of bitter dispute among the Jacobite exile community in France for decades afterward, and its ultimate fate remains one of the more romantic mysteries of Scottish history. Standing at the edge of Loch Arkaig and looking west into the empty hills, it is not difficult to understand why the legend has never quite faded.