Old Road to Kinlochleven Show path on map

Start location: B863, east of the Lochleven Seafood Cafe ( NN 117 611 )

End location: B863, signpost 1.5km further east ( NN 133 613 )

Geographical area:

Path type: Rural Path

Path distance: 0km

Accessibility info: Suitable for pedestrians

Route Description

There is a fine example of a ScotWays sign at NN117611 declaring "Camus na h Eirighe 1/4m" by a newish metal pedestrian gate (adjacent field gate is locked), which gives access to a clear but quite overgrown cart-track. A very large, many-compartmented, drystone enclosure, is located with its northwest corner is at the pronounced angle in the track at NN118613. The track continues at cart width with limited overgrowth to NN126615. So far the track is made with quartzite rubble giving a good, clear, weed-suppressing surface, but becomes boggy and indistinct thereafter, passing through waist-high myrtle, burgeoning bracken and long grass. It is possible to pick up the line (or maybe a variant line) again at NN129615 though more as a groove in the jungle. The line hereabouts roughly parallels (to the north) a line of newish fence posts not strung with wire. It emerges at the road at NN133613 to another fine ScotWays signpost, legend as before except it indicates 1 mile.

Heritage Information

This old right of way has the reputation of being the old road to Kinlochleven. It appears likely to have been the line in use before the present road closer to the shore was built. It has been described as being a well-engineered road, but its eastern half is suffering badly from poor drainage and the encroachment of vegetation.

Along the old road lies Camus na h-Eirghe (NN120612), a long abandoned settlement sometimes called the lost village. This area has been occupied since prehistoric times, though only the signs of the final period of occupation are visible now, the site probably having been abandoned in the early part of the 19th century. Around the settlement there would have been grazing higher up for cattle, sheep and goats, a scattering of birch, hazel and oaks and unenclosed fields of thin, gravely soil, manured with mussels, seaweed and tathing (cattle dung), yielding barley, oats, potatoes and hay. Peat would have been cut for fuel. Some of the oakwoods were coppiced on a 25 year rotation for tanbark and for charcoal smelting.

Camus na h-Eirighe may mean "the bay of the rising", possibly referring to the sun, as this spot on the north shore of the loch may catch the sun before other areas. However, the Clan Cameron website suggests an alternative, "Camus na h-Eirbhe", which would translate as "the bay of the boundary stone". Interestingly, an earlier edition of the OS 6" map (1843-1882) gives another variant, "Camas na h-Airidh". Airidh means shieling, but it is not clear whether this is the original name of the settlement or whether the OS corrected the spelling.