Heritage Path of the Month.
Coffin Road to Kintail is our Heritage Path of the Month for July 2025, click here to view the details
More about Coffin Road to Kintail:
From Inchvuilt in Glen Strathfarrar, a right of way follows a track up the Uisge Misgeach (Drunken Water), crosses the saddle between Meallan Buidhe and Meallan Odhar, then over open ground to Pait Lodge on Loch Monar.
From Pait Lodge, the coffin route heads southwest, via Iron Lodge to Carnach and thence to Kintail, either by Killilan and Loch Long, or by the Falls of Glomach and Bealach na Sroine to Loch Duich.
OS Landranger 25 (Glen Carron & surrounding area)
A E Robertson‘s “Old Tracks” describes many of the long distance routes of the North-west Highlands.
The Rev. Robertson tells of how Alastair Mor na Pait, a famous whisky smuggler, and his wife were both carried in their coffins over the hills and by boat to Kintail churchyard. Their son Jamie’s smuggling bothies were once visible as ruins near the old line of the track. Jamie was canny; after his retirement he performed the smuggler’s trick of turning in his own buried still to the excise men for a reward.
Peter Macdonald, the headkeeper at Broulin, told A E Robertson of how he travelled from Glen Strathfarrar to Kintail with the body of the baby son of a fellow keeper – “We came to cross the river above the Falls of Glomach. I had never seen the falls before. I had the coffin under my arm, but i thought the wee fellow wouldn’t mind, and so I dropped down the hillside for a few hundred feet to where I could see the falls and ‘we’ had a good look and then went on our way to Kintail.”
A E Robertson himself was commemorated on this route – after he died in 1958, money was raised and a bridge built to improve access to the Falls of Glomach.
Clachan Duich on the shores of Loch Duich is the traditional burying place of the Macraes, and inside the ruined walls of the church is the burial ground of the clan chiefs. It is an ancient religious site dating back to at least 1050, when it was dedicated to St Dubhthach. Although the former parish church of Kintail is in ruins, the burial ground surrounding it is still in use today.
The coffin road also served as a track to the summer shielings. For the people of Kintail, the area around Loch Monar was once an important part of the local agricultural economy, for all that it seems remote to us today.
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 routes you follow 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 to time travel along your favourite Heritage Path from 1843 to today.