Gallery
Glencoe & Rannoch Moor
The early starts. Bannockburn to Glencoe is under two hours if you leave before the light does, and Rannoch Moor is on the way.
The photographs
Glencoe, Rannoch Moor, Castle Stalker and the Trossachs.
Click any photograph to see it full size. Every one can be printed and framed.
Buachaille Etive Mòr
Buachaille Etive Mòr, the great herdsman of Etive, standing guard where Glen Coe meets Rannoch Moor. At 1,022 metres it is not the highest mountain in the area, but its pyramid shape from the A82 makes it one of the most recognisable mountains in Scotland.
Glencoe Wee House
The wee white house in Glen Coe, sitting tiny under the steep, burn-cut slopes of the glen. It is a favourite with photographers, and it only works if you get the scale right: the house small, the mountain enormous, and the water still enough to hold the reflection.
First Light, Rannoch Moor
First light catching the snow on the mountains, with the lochan below as still as glass. The boulders in the water were left by glaciers at the end of the last ice age, and they lie scattered across the whole of Rannoch Moor.
Rannoch Moor under ice
The lochan frozen over, the Black Mount white to the foot, and the cloud coming apart just long enough. This is the photograph that filled the studio wall on BBC One's The One Show. Rannoch Moor does this for a few weeks a year and not reliably, so it is worth the early start when the forecast looks right.
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor in winter, the water iced over and the mountains towards Glen Coe white with snow. The moor covers around 50 square miles of bog, lochans and heather at over 300 metres above the sea, and both the A82 and the West Highland Line cross it.
A loch shore beneath the snow
A small sandy shore on a Highland loch, the heather still winter-brown and the last snow lying on the tops. Scenes like this are why the road north from Stirling to Glen Coe always takes longer than it should.
Still water, mirrored hills
A flat calm loch doubling the forest and the hills above it. Mornings like this do not last: the first breath of wind breaks the reflection, which is why so many of these photographs are taken early.
Castle Stalker at sunset
Castle Stalker stands on a tidal islet in Loch Laich, off Loch Linnhe near Port Appin. The tower house dates from the 1400s, was a stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin, and was restored in the twentieth century after years as a ruin. It is also the castle in the final scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
A lochside cottage in the Trossachs
Fresh spring green around a lochside cottage in the Trossachs, doubled in the water. Sir Walter Scott made the Trossachs famous with The Lady of the Lake in 1810, and they have been called the Highlands in miniature ever since. Today they are part of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
New photographs are being added to this gallery. Have a look at the others in the meantime.
About the place
The road north, and what is at the end of it.
From Stirling the road runs through the Trossachs, across Rannoch Moor and down into Glen Coe. It is one of the finest drives in Britain, and every stop on it is in this gallery.
Glen Coe
Glen Coe is the most famous glen in the Highlands: the remains of an ancient volcano, carved out by ice, with the Three Sisters (Beinn Fhada, Gearr Aonach and Aonach Dubh) lining its south side and Bidean nam Bian, the highest mountain in Argyll, behind them. It is part of the Ben Nevis and Glen Coe National Scenic Area, with a National Trust for Scotland visitor centre near the village.
It is also the glen of the Massacre of Glencoe in February 1692, when government soldiers turned on the MacDonalds who had given them shelter. More recently James Bond drove through it in Skyfall.
Buachaille Etive Mòr
Buachaille Etive Mòr, the great herdsman of Etive, guards the entrance to both Glen Coe and Glen Etive. Its main summit, Stob Dearg, is 1,022 metres, and there are two Munros along its ridge. Seen from the A82 at the edge of Rannoch Moor it is an almost perfect pyramid, which is why it is one of the most photographed mountains in Scotland.
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor is around 50 square miles of blanket bog, lochans, rivers and heather, sitting over 300 metres up and ringed by mountains. It is one of the largest areas of open wild land left in Britain. The West Highland Line crosses it on a bed of turf and brushwood laid in the 1890s, and the A82 runs along its western edge towards Glen Coe.
The boulders scattered across it were dropped by glaciers at the end of the last ice age, and on a still morning the lochans hold perfect reflections of the snow on the Black Mount.
Castle Stalker and Appin
Castle Stalker stands on a tidal islet in Loch Laich, off Loch Linnhe near Port Appin, about half an hour south of Glencoe on the road to Oban. The tower house dates from the 1400s and belonged to the Stewarts of Appin. It was restored in the twentieth century and is still privately owned, and it is the castle at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The Trossachs
The Trossachs are the Highlands in miniature: wooded hills, and lochs like Loch Katrine, Loch Venachar, Loch Achray and Loch Ard, between Aberfoyle and Callander. Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake made them famous in 1810, and in 2002 they became part of Scotland's first national park, Loch Lomond and The Trossachs. From Stirling they are under an hour away.
Prints of Glencoe and Rannoch Moor
Buachaille Etive Mòr, Glencoe Wee House, Rannoch Moor and First Light, Rannoch Moor are all framed prints in the catalogue, and several of these photographs are in the 2027 Scotland calendar. Any other photograph here can be printed to order.
Questions people ask
Can I buy a print of Buachaille Etive Mòr?
Yes. It is a framed print in the catalogue, in white, black or natural at A4 £60, A3 £90 or A2 £120.
How far is Glencoe from Stirling?
About two hours by car, through Callander and Crianlarich and then along the A82 across Rannoch Moor.
When is the best time to photograph Glencoe?
Early morning, and the months either side of summer. Autumn brings the colour, winter the snow, and low light at either end of the day picks out every ridge and gully.
Do you take commissions in Glencoe and the Highlands?
Yes, including weddings. See drone wedding photography or use the form below.
More galleries: Stirling & the Monuments · The Kelpies & the Falkirk Canals · Panoramic Scotland · Scotland
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