Qualla: Loch Achray

Loch Achray: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Mitchell from Glasgow, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. A magpie's nest, the Argyll hunters called it - that small wooded island at the western end of Loch Achray, where Little James Stewart kept his hunting lodge. The men had come up from Argyleshire to poach the King's deer in Glenartney and Glensinglais, and they meant the insult plainly. Little James, keeper of those royal forests, answered just as plainly. The magpie, he warned, had a way of calling the local hawks to council. When the Argyll party returned, few rode home to tell the tale.

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Image: Andy Mitchell from Glasgow, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Achray: A Loch Between Lochs

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dr Richard Murray, CC BY-SA 2.0. Loch Achray sits in the heart of the Trossachs, west of Callander in what is now the Stirling council area. It is a freshwater loch, modest in size, with an average depth of about 11 metres and water that takes on the moss-green of the surrounding hills. Loch Katrine lies to the ...

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Image: Dr Richard Murray | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Achray: The Stewart Who Came Home

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen Sweeney, CC BY-SA 2.0. The history that anchors Achray begins with a family disgrace. In 1425, James I of Scotland executed Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, for treason. Murdoch's son James Mor Stewart, known to history as James the Fat, fled into exile in Ireland and never returned. His own son, James...

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Image: Stephen Sweeney | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Achray: The Hawking Match

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 4.0. The Argyll story is the one that stuck. A party of Campbells came east to hunt the royal forests of Glenartney and Glensinglais without asking the keeper's leave. They killed deer and roebucks freely. On their way back, weary from the chase, they encountered Little James himself ...

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Image: CC BY-SA 4.0

Loch Achray: What the Painters Saw

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keith Salvesen, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the 19th century, the Trossachs were the engine of Scotland's first tourism boom, lit by Scott's poetry and the steamers on Loch Katrine. Loch Achray became a stop on the picturesque circuit, painted by William Leighton Leitch and others in that romantic register where every r...

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Image: Keith Salvesen | CC BY-SA 2.0