Achnacarry

The museum at the heart of Achnacarry

The Clan Cameron Museum occupies the oldest building on the estate, a listed cottage that has taken visitors since 1989. Inside are weapons, clothing, paintings, photographs and domestic artefacts, arranged around the clan's history, the 1745 rising, the Cameron Highlanders and the commandos who trained here during the war. The shop by the door sells Cameron crest and tartan gifts, one of the few shopping options in the area.

That is roughly the size of the place. The village sits in the valley of the River Arkaig, on a 222-acre designed landscape between Lochiel Forest and Glengarry Forest, closed off at one end by Loch Lochy and at the other by Loch Arkaig. The long views run east towards Ben Nevis and west along the loch towards Knoydart. To get here you leave the A82 at the Commando Memorial, follow the B8004 to Gairlochy, cross the Caledonian Canal and pick up the signed B8005; the last roads are single track. The nearest station is Spean Bridge, which has a six-space free car park and neither a ticket office, toilets nor staff. Shiel Buses run service 43 through the village, but the timetable is thin and built mostly around school days, so a car is the more practical way to arrive.

Loch Arkaig walks and dinner at the Old Station

Most of what there is to do is walking. From the Eas Chia-aig car park a track runs about nine kilometres out and back to Invermallie, an open bothy, past a double waterfall and through alder and willow woodland; it turns boggy near the end, and you should not expect toilets along the route. The waterfall is the one Liam Neeson leaps across in Rob Roy. Beyond it, the Loch Arkaig Pine Forest is a surviving fragment of Caledonian pinewood reached by the "dark mile", a single-track road walled in by moss and trees. Pine marten, red squirrel, red deer and osprey live in it, and there is a treasure trail of hidden caskets and embossing presses for anyone with children to occupy.

One nearby dinner option is the Old Station at Spean Bridge, a restaurant beside the railway where the trains still pass the window. The kitchen leans local: chicken Balmoral stuffed with Scotch haggis, a Station steak pie made with Scotch beef, a venison burger with Scottish black pudding, and tablet ice cream to finish. There is a garden for the days that allow it.

Jacobite chiefs and commando training

The estate has been the seat of the Cameron chiefs since the late 17th century. Sir Ewen Cameron built a castle beside the river; his grandson Donald, the "Gentle Lochiel", joined the 1745 rising and sheltered Charles Edward Stuart here after Culloden, after which government troops burned the castle. Its walling still stands near the present Achnacarry House, begun in 1802 to James Gillespie Graham's design and finished in 1837. James Hogg, passing through in 1803, wrote to Walter Scott that "we reached Achnacarry viewing the new castle of Lochiel the building of which was then going brisky on".

In the war the estate became a commando training centre, and about 25,000 men passed through between 1942 and 1945 for assault landings, log carries, single-rope crossings of the river, close combat and demolitions. Their memorial stands a few miles away above the Great Glen at Spean Bridge: three bronze commandos on a granite plinth, made by H.H. Martyn & Co. to Scott Sutherland's design in 1951.

St Cian's Church and the Lochiel burial ground

St Cian's Church of Scotland, built around 1910 by Peter MacGregor Chalmers, stands on a low hillock above the old carriage drive. The Lochiels' burial ground occupies a small island in Loch Arkaig said once to have held an early Christian chapel.

Chiefs, commandos, church and the waiting trees

Along the riverside walk there is a line of close-planted beech trees, said to have been left waiting for the Gentle Lochiel to come home from the rising. He did not come home. The trees are still there.