Beauly

The square, the priory and The Comm

At the north end of Beauly's broad square, past the independent shops and the spring cherry blossom, the old priory stands without its roof. A short lane from the shops reaches the River Beauly, which loops slowly through flat willow marsh and fields.

The Priory Hotel faces the square beside the ruin it takes its name from. Its public bar, The Comm, has a real fire, and the same family has run the hotel since 1972. The kitchen does a Priory-style Cullen skink, homemade beefsteak pie, dirty macaroni cheese with black pudding and bacon, and venison steak with potato rosti, haggis and chasseur sauce. There is moules-frites, and a coconut, sweet-potato and squash dhansak for anyone who has had enough of Scotland for one evening. The beer garden is completely covered, with heaters you control at your own table.

Two bars and a square full of food

On Main Street, the Lovat Arms keeps two bars. One is a Locals' Bar with live music and a proper underground cellar; the other, quieter, is The Strupag, which the hotel translates from the Gaelic as "a drop from the spout" and which deals in malt whisky. The food runs to haggis ravioli, Cullen skink and a Sunday roast with Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

The square feeds itself well for its size. John M Munro has butchered at number 3 since 1922. Corner on the Square, run by Gary and Jacqui Williamson since 2003, is a licensed deli, café and greengrocer selling cheeses, charcuterie, antipasti and Scottish seafood to order. Harry Gow, a fifth-generation Highland bakery, sells Dream rings — a cream-filled, iced ring of sweet bun — alongside pineapple tarts and butteries. Café Biagiotti, run by the sisters Flora Valentine and Rosie Calder, bakes its own focaccia and bignès, and brings its coffee from a family roastery in Tuscany and its milk from a dairy five miles away. Campbell's of Beauly, a country tailor established in 1858, still cuts bespoke garments on the premises.

River walks and Valliscaulian ruins

Two walks start near the square. The shorter is a flat circuit of under two miles around a meander of the river, past willow marsh and field edges. The longer is a five-mile circuit starting at Black Bridge, which you can join at Lovat Bridge after walking from Beauly, through woodland and farmland, passing the weir and spring bluebells, with sightlines to the red-sandstone turrets of Beaufort Castle.

The priory is worth the lane. Sir John Bisset brought monks of the austere Valliscaulian order here around 1230; only 21 houses of that order were ever founded, and three of them were in Scotland. The roofless red-sandstone church keeps its 13th-century tracery, a 15th-century stair turret and the mural tomb of Prior Alexander Mackenzie, who died in 1479 and has since lost his effigy. Mary, Queen of Scots visited in 1564.

Red sandstone, rail and road

St Mary's Roman Catholic church, red sandstone and probably designed by Joseph Hansom, went up in 1864. The Frasers of Lovat held the land around the village from Beaufort Castle; Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, founded the Lovat Scouts in 1899.

Beauly station sits on Station Road with a shelter, a car park and no ticket machine. ScotRail runs it to Inverness and north towards Dingwall and beyond, and Inverness itself is about twenty minutes away on the A862.

The elm that marked the boundary

For eight hundred years an elm stood beside the priory, first recorded as a boundary marker for the monks' land. Dutch elm disease reduced it to a fraction alive, and it fell in January 2023. Two young elms were planted on the spot in the spring of 2024, one of them apparently grown from the old tree.