The Fyrish Monument stands on the hill above Evanton with nine stone columns visible for miles, and once you have seen it you keep finding it: over the rooftops, above the trees, at the end of a firth view. General Sir Hector Munro of Novar had it built in 1792 to give his tenants paid work, its three arches loosely following Indian forms in memory of his 1781 victory at Negapatam. Two of his sons died in India, one killed by a tiger and the other by a shark. You can walk up to it on the signposted Jubilee Path from the Boath road car park, a little under four miles there and back through woodland that opens onto moor, ending with the whole sweep of the Cromarty Firth in view, from the North Sea round to Ben Wyvis.
Down in the village, Balconie Street holds the Co-op at number 13, which handles groceries, Costa coffee, parcels and PayPoint. The Cornerstone Café at number 16 is run by volunteers for Kiltearn Parish Church and does soup, sandwiches, toasties, all-day breakfasts, bacon and sausage rolls, burgers, and a spread of cakes, scones and traybakes. The Evanton Walkers Group meets there, as do the arts-and-crafts groups.
The Novar Arms is the village hotel, family-run, with a lounge, a family room and a public bar carrying a pool table, dartboard, jukebox and television. There are daily specials and a Sunday carvery, and recent menus have run from fish and chips and salmon to haggis bonbons, a Novar burger, chicken pot pie and roast beef. The bar leans on Scottish malts, Dalmore and Glenmorangie among them, and on gins including Harris, Rock Rose and Porter's. One recent guest called it a "lovely village pub with hotel rooms above and bar below," and said everyone was friendly. The Balconie Inn, a smaller community pub at number 10, is the other option.
Two miles out at Foulis Ferry, the Storehouse occupies a restored eighteenth-century grain store on the firth, where estate tenants once brought their grain for shipment to Leith. It now holds a restaurant, a food hall and a gift shop. The menu changes with what is available, and the hall sells local potatoes and vegetables, cheeses, bread, jams, chutneys, game, ice cream and cakes made in the kitchen, gluten-free baking included. Gin is a stated speciality.
The best-known walk is the Black Rock Gorge, a circuit of two and a half miles that takes about an hour and a half. From the footbridge the Allt Graad runs more than a hundred feet below in a narrow, twisting sandstone chasm; the path is rough and muddy in places, and the edge deserves respect. A scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was filmed here. The gorge borders Evanton Community Wood, sixty-five hectares of community-owned woodland where volunteers have laid paths and built a pond, a cabin, an octagonal shelter and a play area with a replica Viking longship. The wood received the King's Award for Voluntary Service in 2025.
On the shore stand the ruins of Kiltearn Old Parish Church, roofless since the roof fell in during the 1960s after the slates were taken off. The T-plan kirk was rebuilt in 1790–91 on older walling, could once seat 700, and stands in a kirkyard of more than 400 headstones, some carved with skulls, crossed bones, handbells and gravediggers' tools. A minister was first recorded on the site in 1227.
Evanton itself was laid out around 1805–10, beside an older fermtoun called Drummond, by Alexander Fraser, who named it after his son Evan Baillie Fraser. He also named Camden, Hermitage and Livera streets after the Caribbean plantations he was tied to, where records list hundreds of enslaved people.
Balconie Street carried the A9 until the bypass opened in 1979. The nearest station is Alness, four miles off, and Stagecoach buses stop outside the Co-op on the run between Inverness, Dingwall and Alness. On a clear evening the columns on the hill hold the last of the light while the village below has already gone into shadow.