Heritage Path of the Month.
Coffin Road, Bealach Eòrabhat, is our Heritage Path of the Month for November 2025, click here to view the details
More about Coffin Road, Bealach Eòrabhat:
Our route description is the opposite way to that which the coffin bearers would have travelled. Starting at the north end, the first part of the track is over the old line of the public road. It then heads to the summit over a track and then a grassy path. The descent to Ceann a’ Bàigh Mhor (Bayhead) is very boggy. There are waymarker posts at intervals to help keep travellers on track.
The Coffin Road now forms part of the walking strand of the Hebridean Way.
OS Landranger 14 (Tarbert & Loch Seaforth)
This route has a long-standing reputation of being a coffin road from the east of the island to the west. The old burial grounds were on the machair of the west, there being insufficient depth of soil on the rocky east side. At intervals there are stone cairns said to have been added to by coffin bearers and which acted as resting places for the coffins en route.
Bill Lawson‘s book Harris in History and Legend tells the tale of a funeral party carrying a coffin through the pass. When they stopped for a rest, they heard a noise from inside the coffin and upon opening it, discovered the deceased wasn’t dead after all, so she was carried back east. He also relates that the route was known to have been used as a track from the west to Loch Stockinish and the east as long ago as the 1500s.
This coffin road has been the inspiration for a best-selling book – Peter May’s Coffin Road.
More about Heritage Paths
Learn about the history of some of the oldest transport routes in Scotland. Heritage Paths records the history of over 400 routes that criss-cross the Scottish landscape. From Roman Roads to Military Roads, find out how the route you are following came into being.
As well as historical information, you’ll find a modern-day route description along with start and finish details. Change the background mapping in our interactive viewer and time travel along your favourite Heritage Path from 1843 to today.