Beauly Priory

Firstly, we proceed along the shore of the Cromarty Firth and make our way to Beauly where we visit Beauly Priory. Beauly Priory was built in the 13th century for an order of Valliscaulian Monks from Dijon in France. Most of the Priory was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in the 16th century and he removed a lot of the stone to build a citadel. In Inverness when the citadel was destroyed after Cromwell’s death the same stone was then used to build the Dunbar hospital in Inverness – you will see this building later in the day. The Priory was an ancient burial ground for the chiefs of clans Fraser and Mackenzie. Leaving Beauly behind us we make our way over Culnakirk Hill to Drumnadrochit.

Urquhart Castle

After passing through Drumnadrochit and at the top of the hill we stop at Urquhart Castle which sits on a promontory overlooking the loch. Urquhart Castle was once one of Scotland’s largest castles and has been fought over many times with control of the castle passing back and forth between the Scots and the English during the wars of independence. It is near here that St Columba is purported to have seen the loch ness monster in 580 AD, the monster came out of the water to attack one of his disciples and St Columba banished it back to the water. The castle gatehouse was deliberately destroyed in 1692 so it could never be used again as a military stronghold.