Glenurquhart or Glen Urquhart ( gd, Gleann Urchadain) is a

glen A glen is a valley, typically one that is long and bounded by gently sloped concave sides, unlike a ravine, which is deep and bounded by steep slopes. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower ...

running to the west of the village of

Drumnadrochit Drumnadrochit (; gd, Druim na Drochaid) is a village in the Highland local government council area of Scotland, lying near the west shore of Loch Ness at the foot of Glen Urquhart. The village is close to several neighbouring settlements: the v ...

in the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

council area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Location

Glenurquhart runs from Loch Ness at

Urquhart Bay Urquhart may refer to: * Urquhart, Moray, a village in the parish of Urquhart in the county of Moray, Scotland * Urquhart (surname), a surname (and list of people with the surname) * Clan Urquhart, a Scottish clan * Urquhart and Glenmoriston, a ...

in the east to

Corrimony Corrimony is a small village at the western end of Glenurquhart, in Inverness-shire, in the Highlands of Scotland, now within Highland council area. It is 13 km west of Drumnadrochit, and 32 km south-west of Inverness. Corrimony is f ...

and beyond in the west. The River Enrick runs along its length, passing through

Loch Meiklie ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spellin ...

. The villages of

Balnain Balnain is a small village in Glenurquhart, Scotland, about 5 miles west of Drumnadrochit. It is mostly dependent on tourism, forestry, agriculture and farming. The first buildings were created in the 1870s and 1880s and minor expansions occurred ...

and Balbeg are situated about up the glen.

History

Glenurquhart used to be part of the lands of the Grants of Glenmoriston, with the lands of the

Frasers House of Fraser (also operating as Frasers) is a British department store group with 44 locations across the United Kingdom, which is now part of Frasers Group. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891, it w ...

to the north for most of its time.

Notable people

*Rev

Ewen MacRury Ewen MacRury (1891–1986) was a Free Church of Scotland minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1944. Life He was born in 1891 one of eight children to John Little (Ewan Beag) MacRury (b.1843) and his wife, Betsy MacDon ...

(1891–1986) minister of Glen Urquhart from around 1930 to the 1960s,

Moderator of the General Assembly The moderator of the General Assembly is the chairperson of a General Assembly, the highest court of a Presbyterian or Reformed church. Kirk sessions and presbyteries may also style the chairperson as moderator. The Oxford Dictionary states t ...

of the Free Church of Scotland in 1944

Climate

Like most of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, the Inverness area has an

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...

( Köppen: ''Cfb''). The weather is pleasantly warm and sunny in the spring and summer, cool and fairly rainy in the autumn and very cold and snowy (with some

blizzard A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling ...

s) in the winter. Police imposed speed restrictions on many bridges as fallen trees and a

landslip Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environme ...

both caused problems on the A82 near

in the November 2010.

Attractions

Glen Urquhart has a mixture of planted, conifer forest and native, broadleaved woodlands. The hillsides on the south side of the glen are mainly used for commercial forestry, managed by the

Forestry Commission The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the management of publicly owned forests and the regulation of both public and private forestry in England. The Forestry Commission was previously also resp ...

. The slopes on the opposite side are covered with a mixture of deciduous woodland (mainly

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' cont ...

), farmland and some areas of commercial forestry. There are waymarked walks in Craigmonie woodland, near Drumnadrochit at the foot of the glen. A network of forest roads all along the glen is suitable for walking, cycling and horse-riding. Deer hunting (stalking) is a popular recreational and cultural experience here, bringing international visitors from around the world. A

chambered cairn A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...

at Corrimony is part of the Clava group of cairns. The local shinty team is called

Glenurquhart Shinty Club Glenurquhart Shinty Club is a shinty team which plays in Drumnadrochit on the banks of Loch Ness, Scotland. It draws its players from the part of the Great Glen which encompasses Drumnadrochit, Lewiston and Glenurquhart. The club has been exis ...

Footnotes

External links

Craigmonie Centre , Natural History

* ttp://www.scotlandbandbs.co.uk/scotland_history.html HOTELS UK have 25,000 Cheap UK Hotels, Luxury Hotels in UK {{Coord, 57, 20, 20, N, 4, 34, 2, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Urquhart Geography of Inverness Valleys of Highland (council area)