Historic inn at the heart of Scottish mountaineering up for sale
The Clachaig Inn is 300 years old
- Published
A 300-year-old former coaching inn that has been at the heart of Scottish mountaineering has been put up for sale.
The inn is thought to have been established in the early 18th Century when a drovers road was built to take sheep to market, not long after the Glen Coe massacre happened nearby.
Over the years the Clachaig Inn has hosted Victorian climbing pioneers, seen the birth of the mountain rescue service, and become a hub for live folk music and a destination for Harry Potter fans.
The business is being sold by Ed and Guy Daynes, who took over the business from their parents Peter and Eileen Daynes in 1990, six years after they bought the inn.
The inn was used as a rest stop in Glen Coe for people travelling from the Highlands to markets in Perth
Ed Daynes told BBC Scotland News the family had kept the "Highland hospitality" tradition for hikers and visitors from all walks of life.
A 1906 meeting of Scottish Mountaineering Club at the Inn included Sir Hugh Munro, who categorised country's tallest peaks, William Naismith, who made the first recorded ski expedition in Scotland and the pioneering climber Norman Collie.
Local resident Hamish MacInnes, a renowned mountaineer and inventor who died in 2020, formed the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team at a meeting in the bar in 1962.
Owners and staff have always been part of the team and they have been holding free winter mountain safety lectures for 40 years.
"For mountaineers, it's always been a place to rest up or meet people - it's a great leveller," he said.
"It wasn't a wealthy sport, it was an escape for workers in the Glasgow shipyards.
"We've continued that over the years - it doesn't mater who you are or what you do, everyone is welcome."
The inn became a hub for mountaineers, including Hugh Munro and his contemporaries in the Scottish Mountaineering Council in 1906
That welcome was extended in 2003 to a film crew who spent six months on site working on the third film based on JK Rowling's wizarding books.
Sets for the Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban were created near the bottom of nearby Clachaig Gully.
The location for Hagrid's Hut, 200m up a rough path from the inn, has become a site of pilgrimage for fans of the films, despite no evidence of the film set remaining.
"At the time we thought it was just another film," Mr Daynes said. " Even now it's as busy as it's even been, or busier - it's incredible.
"People are still coming every day to see a slightly elevated bit of land with a view."
Other guests come to the glen for the live trad music in the Boots Bar every Saturday, and can be seen walking in a torchlit parade to the local campsite and hostel down the road at the end of the night.
A memorial to the massacre in Glencoe can be found in the village, but the inn still has a warning for Campbells
While the inn is now more likely to see visitors arrive in cars or camper vans, it was once a rest stop for people travelling with their sheep from the Highlands to markets in Perth and further south.
Mr Daynes said he had discovered the old coach road was being built in the 1700s, when sheep farming became more established in the years following the 1692 massacre.
Almost 40 members of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed after soldiers, led by Capt Robert Campbell of Glen Lyon, were ordered to attack them.
A plaque at the inn entrance reads "No Hawkers, no Campbells".
"It was put there in the 1960s by a previous owner who was a MacDonald, and we decided we would keep it," Mr Daynes admitted. "It still causes quite a bit of interest."
Members of the Campbell clan are not barred from the venue, he added.
The Clachaig Inn is being sold along with the Daynes' The Grog & Gruel alehouse in Fort William, by Christie & Co for £4.5m.