Tarbet

A Church Recast for Scottish Cooking

Kirk O' The Lochs serves Cullen skink, haggis bon bons and freshly landed fish and chips out of a building put up as a Free Church in the spring of 1844. Alexander Stewart of Dunoon raised it in about four months for £240, and the congregation carted the materials themselves. It spent recent years as a restaurant called The Slanj, which closed in 2025, and now trades under new management with a menu of hearty pies, salads and traditional Scottish cooking. There is a beer garden, and dogs are welcome inside and out, with a menu of their own.

The afternoon tea runs further: brioche rolls and wraps, mini Cullen skink, scones, cranachan, caramel shortcake and macarons. The rear stained-glass windows still commemorate the Rev Mr Kippen, minister here until 1881.

Victorian Shores and the Tarbet Isthmus

The other place to eat is the Tarbet Hotel, a large Baronial pile on the loch shore with crowstepped gables, a castellated entrance tower and an oak stair inside. A coaching inn stood on the site from the sixteenth century, and a public house is marked here on a map of 1777; the present building went up in 1850 and was heavily remodelled in 1880 into the Victorian resort landmark it remains. The bar does toasties and broth at lunch, with steak pie and fish and chips on the current menu and an Explorers Menu for children. One guest called the steak pie "one of the best steak pies I have ever had." Dogs get water bowls, treats and Puppacinos.

The village itself is a low neck of land, which is what its Gaelic-derived name means: isthmus. Freshwater Loch Lomond lies on one side and the sea loch, Loch Long, on the other. From the pier you look across to Ben Lomond; behind you the Cobbler and the Arrochar Alps rise over the crossing. In 1263 Norse raiders following King Haco hauled their boats over this same isthmus and sailed south to raid the loch, a fleet given as sixty ships.

Moonlit Raids and Forest Circuits

Later the ground belonged to Clan MacFarlane, whose cattle raids were timed to a full moon still remembered locally as McFarlane's lantern. Shaped flint tools have turned up in the school field.

For walking, the Hidden Heritage Trail is an easy 3.5-mile circuit between Tarbet and Arrochar that crosses the isthmus and picks up part of the Three Lochs Way, the 34-mile route running through the village from Balloch to Inveruglas. Closer to hand, the Tarbet Isle Loop is a waymarked three-quarter-mile forest circuit through Scots pine, muddy in places and with one short steep slope, that opens out to views of Ben Lomond. South of the village the traffic-free West Loch Lomond Cycle Path heads towards Luss.

Cruises from Tarbet Pier

Tarbet Pier is a departure point for a 60-minute circular cruise and, in season, a waterbus to Inversnaid and Rowardennan on the quieter eastern shore, which puts the West Highland Way and Ben Lomond within a car-free day out. Dogs travel too. The Bonnie and Ben takeaway café stands by the pier car park, and there are public toilets.

Rail, Road and Railway Memory

Trains stop at Arrochar & Tarbet station, about ten minutes' walk from the water and roughly an hour and twenty minutes from Glasgow Queen Street; the A82 and A83 meet at the village. The railway itself was hard-won: thirty-seven navvies died near Arrochar, Tarbet or Ardlui during construction of the West Highland Railway, which opened in 1894, and are remembered in the graveyard at Ballyhennan, a short way from the church that now sends out its afternoon tea.