The Sligachan Hotel and Old Bridge, Isle of Skye

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The Hotel

For a large island, Skye has a narrow waist, across the five miles or so from Loch Harport in the west to Loch Sligachan in the east. At the head of Loch Sligachan the main road from Portree to Broadford meets that from Dunvegan, and here you find the Sligachan Hotel. The original inn was probably built in the 1700s, and half a mile nearer the head of the bay at a ford over the River Sligachan. The name Sligachan is Gaelic for "shelly place", after the shells found at the original location.

In about 1830 a new Sligachan Inn was built at the current location and proved ideally placed when the gentleman climbers of the day discovered that this part of Scotland had mountains that in character (if not in height) could match the best available in the Alps. Most books about climbing in the latter half of the 1800s contain at least one photo of a group of tweed-clad and hobnail boot-shod men, stiffly posed in front of the Sligachan Inn. The hotel itself is home to a small museum remembering the exploits of these early climbers.

The Old Bridge

The oldest known bridge is that still standing alongside the modern road. Whether it replaced an even older bridge, or more likely a ford, is uncertain. The bridge itself appears to have been built in the 1820s and consists of three arches. The middle arch is the widest, but the side arches are not mere flood arches, as the River Sligachan is a wide and ferocious piece of water for most of the year. The roadway is slightly humpbacked over the large central arch and only single track.