Qualla: Puck's Glen

Puck's Glen: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Brown, CC BY-SA 2.0. Step off the A815 road about ten kilometres north of Dunoon, leave the car park, and within minutes you are walking up the cleft of one of the most theatrical small glens in Scotland. The path follows the Eas Mor, Gaelic for big waterfall, as it tumbles from one polished basin to the next between near-vertical walls of schistose rock cushioned with moss. Bridges crisscross the stream every few hundred metres. Conifers close overhead. In 1918, the Anchor Line Staff Magazine described Puck's Glen as a place where an amber stream cuts a channel through moss-draped schistose rock, tumbling from one silver rock-chalice to another. A century later the description still fits. Whoever named the gorge after the trickster fairy of A Midsummer Night's Dream had the right instinct.

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Image: David Brown | CC BY-SA 2.0

Puck's Glen: From Hunting Ground to Improved Estate

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit william craig, CC BY-SA 2.0. The land here belonged for centuries to the Campbells of Ballochyle, who used it as hunting ground. Forestry plantation on the Benmore Estate began around 1820, and the first detailed map of the area, an Ordnance Survey sheet from 1865, shows the Eas Mor gorge as a small wooded r...

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Image: william craig | CC BY-SA 2.0

Puck's Glen: The Hut Above the Gorge

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Henry Younger of the Edinburgh brewing family bought Benmore in 1889 and, with his son Harry George Younger, made many further improvements. In commemoration of Duncan's earlier work, the Youngers commissioned Sir Robert Lorimer to design a small memorial hut above the gorge. The...

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Image: DeFacto | CC BY-SA 4.0

Puck's Glen: A Temperate Rainforest

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dave souza, CC BY-SA 4.0. Puck's Glen lies within Argyll Forest Park and, since 1929, within an area also adjoining the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's first outstation at Benmore. The Cowal climate, very wet and relatively mild, creates conditions for temperate rainforest: mossy understorey, hanging lic...

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Image: dave souza | CC BY-SA 4.0

Puck's Glen: Closure, Disease, and Recovery

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dave souza, CC BY-SA 4.0. The path needs constant care. After the original Victorian routes deteriorated, a major restoration in May 1986 rebuilt the bridges and reopened the trail. In 2020, the glen and adjoining trails closed temporarily. The reasons stacked: COVID-19 restrictions, concerns about the st...

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Image: dave souza | CC BY-SA 4.0