The Glen Nevis area is rich in both human and natural history.
High above the Glen on a steep rising knoll is the Iron Age fort called, ‘Dun Deardail’, a vitrified fort of wood peat and stone; fused together by burning. It would have been constructed over 2000 years ago by the early dwellers of the glen.
The romantic tales of Highland clans and their battles are numerous throughout the Highlands. Two great battles were fought at the mouth of the Glen itself, one in the fifteenth century and another in the eighteenth. During these turbulent times the Glen was in the hands of a branch of the Clan Cameron; although they didn’t participate directly in the 1745 rebellion with Bonnie Prince Charlie, the government redcoats never the less raided the Glen.
There are still sites in the Glen with relate directly to those time; the soldiers pool, and the soldiers seat overlooking the River Nevis where the redcoats used to lookout for renegade Jacobites. Also Samuel’s cave at the mouth of the gorge where young children were hidden from the troops during the winter months.
There is other reminders of the past, in the old Cameron graveyard at Ach-na’n-con just beyond the soldiers’ pool, and Dun Dige, a small wooden mound next to the youth hostel which is the site of the former house of the head of the Camerons of Glen Nevis.
