Inveruglas

Where road, rail, pipes and loch converge

Four pipelines run straight down the hillside to a power station on the shore, and that is the first thing you see at Inveruglas. They carry water from Loch Sloy, high behind Ben Vorlich, to a generating hall at the edge of Loch Lomond. The A82, the West Highland railway, the pipes and the loch all crowd onto the same narrow strip of ground, and the hamlet is essentially those things and a car park.

The car park is pay-and-display, with lochside access and a picnic area. Until early 2026 a timber pyramid called An Ceann Mòr stood here as a viewpoint; it was closed for structural problems and then removed, but the view it framed is still there from the shore — Ben Lomond and the wooded eastern bank across the water, the crags of the Arrochar Alps rising to the west and north. There is no café. Public toilets exist but are not reliably open, so it is worth arriving prepared.

The island seat of Clan Macfarlane

Just offshore, in the bay, sits Inveruglas Isle, its trees hiding the ruin of Inveruglas Castle. This was the principal seat of Clan Macfarlane — an oblong tower enlarged into a Z-plan around the later sixteenth century, with two round angle towers and a substantial drystone jetty. Cromwellian troops probably abandoned and partly destroyed it during the Commonwealth.

The power station dominates the shore. Sloy was the first major post-war hydro scheme in Scotland, built between 1945 and 1950; only twenty-one dry days were recorded across those four years. Water travels three kilometres through a tunnel beneath Ben Vorlich before dropping down the four pipelines. Queen Elizabeth opened it in October 1950. It remains the largest conventional hydroelectric station in the UK and can reach full output in under five minutes. The building itself, Category A listed and designed by Harold Ogle Tarbolton, is Modernist Classical in precast granite with giant pilasters, built as a deliberate statement for a scheme meant to electrify remote Highland homes. Twenty-one men of several nationalities died building it, and a plaque inside names them.

Walks and food along the A82

Most people come to walk. The Loch Sloy hydro road gives the gentlest option, climbing under the railway between Ben Vorlich and A' Chrois toward the dam without committing you to a summit. Ben Vane goes up from the same road — a six-and-three-quarter-mile round trip with 930 metres of ascent, false tops and a short scramble near the end, described by one walking guide as "like a wee terrier that refuses to acknowledge its lack of stature." Ben Vorlich, a 943-metre Munro, starts the same way. Inveruglas is also where the Loch Lomond & Cowal Way and the Three Lochs Way both finish, the last stretch coming down Glen Loin from Arrochar, about four and three-quarter miles away.

For food, you go north or south along the A82. North at Inverarnan, the Drovers Inn keeps a log fire, a good deal of taxidermy and a stuffed grizzly bear in reception, and serves Steak and Guinness Pie, Venison Casserole and the Loch Lomond Monster Burger; dogs are welcome in the bar. South at Inverbeg, the Inn on Loch Lomond has been going since 1884 and does haggis with neeps, tatties and whisky sauce, mussels marinière and seafood linguine at a rustic elm bar.

Rail, bus and cruises from Tarbet

The nearest station is Arrochar & Tarbet, three and a half miles off on the West Highland line, unstaffed and with no facilities. Buses on the A82 stop at a pair of shelters named, plainly, Sloy Power Station. From Tarbet a one-hour cruise loops out past the Inversnaid falls and back along the hydro scheme, with dogs allowed on board.

At the water's edge

Whatever brought you, you will probably end up standing at the water's edge for a while, watching the pipes and the far shore and waiting for the light to move.