Queen Victoria's picnic in Glen Torridon

Many people today visiting Torridon stop off at the head of the loch, calling in at Torridon Stores & Café for a gift or some baking before enjoying a walk on the beach or views along the path up the hill from the jetty.

In 1877, whilst staying at Loch Maree Hotel, Queen Victoria and her daughter Princess Beatrice drove along Glen Torridon and picnicked on the bank above the road by the point just along from Fassaig village and just beyond where the Darroch Stone is now situated.

Queen Victoria seemed impressed with the peace and beauty looking across the loch though perhaps less enamoured with the appearance of local children and their homes. ‘The air off the mountains and the sea was delicious, and not muggy,’ she wrote in her journal. ‘We two remained sketching, for the view was beautiful… We were nearly an hour sitting there and we got down unwillingly, as it was so fine and such a wild uncivilised spot, like the end of the world… The property here belongs to a Mr Darroch, whose two little boys rode past us twice with a groom… the people came out to see us, and we went into a little merchant’s shop, where we all bought trifles… I got some very good comforters, two little woven woollen shawls, and a very nice cloak… A little further off the road and more on the slope of the hill, was a row of five or six wretched hovels, before which stood bare-legged and very ill-clad children, a poor woman literally squatting on the ground. The people cheered us and seemed very much pleased. Hardly anyone ever comes here.’

As told by Anne MacRae, resident of Torridon

More information on visiting the area can be found here.