Achnacarry Sporting & Country Pursuits

Bonnie Prince Charlie

ACHNACARRY AND THE JACOBITES

Growing in the grounds of Achnacarry House is a famous beech avenue planted by the 19th chief of Clan Cameron, better known in history as the “Gentle Lochiel”. He intended planting a formal avenue when he had news that Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) had landed in Moidart. The saplings were hastily pushed into a ditch by the River Arkaig as a temporary measure. Lochiel went off to join the prince. He was wounded at the Battle of Culloden but escaped to France where he died in 1748. Two of his three brothers died for their part in the Jacobite Rising.

The ruined stone chimney breast standing near the stable block is all that remains of the old Achnacarry House built by the Gentle Lochiel’s grandfather after it was burnt by the Hanoverian troops in the brutal reprisals suffered by the Camerons after Culloden. It was largely built of fir planks cut from the surrounding forest.