Ballachulish Hotels

Ballachulish The name comes from the Gaelic for village of the narrows, and the first settlement to bear the name lay where North Ballachulish is today. Its twin, on the south side of the loch, rapidly followed. Loch Leven narrows dramatically here and North and South Ballachulish grew up around the slipways from which a ferry crossed the loch from as early as 1730 A vehicle ferry started to cross the narrows in 1912, but the service finally disappeared in 1975 when the bridge opened. With it disappeared the choice facing drivers of the sometimes long queues at busy periods or the fifteen mile detour via Though the ferry has long gone, the slipways that served the ferry remain: by no means opposite one another. Also remaining are the hotels on either side that warmed cold passengers waiting for the ferry. The steel truss bridge that opened here in 1975 fits nicely into its environment. Indeed, it comes as something of a surprise to find it is such a relatively recent addition to this part of the Western Highlands.South Ballachulish largely comprises the slipway and the hotel. Close to the steps leading down from the bridge to the Oban road near the hotel is a memorial to James Stewart, hanged here in 1752 for the Appin Murder. This was the killing of Colin Campbell, an event used as the basis for Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Kidnapped. Stewart's execution was a result of the gratest miscarriage of justice in Scottish legal history. A number of the sites assciated with the Appin Murder have been linked by the Last Clansman Trail.