About this wood
Travelling along the shores of Loch Ness, one of the few places you can get off the road and into the woods is Abriachan Wood. Stopping here is well worth the effort, enjoy the panoramic views, the contrasting woodland type and the variety of wildlife.
Covering 403 acres on the steeply sloping, craggy northern shore of Loch Ness, the wood is mainly birch with areas of oak and alder with ash, aspen, wych elm, juniper and holly. On the lower slopes close to the lochs there are extensive hazel woodlands rich in lichens.
An ancient relationship between people and the woodland has grown at Abriachan. Fencing, firewood, tools, animal feed all could be cut and gathered in the wood, local houses were built from the Abriachan stone used for the walls and wood for the roof beams and heather from the hill for the thatch. Much later the wood was used for commercial forestry until in the 1990s when the Woodland Trust purchased the wood.
Abriachan means “mouth of the steep burn”. It comes from two words one which the Picts would have used, the other Scots Gaelic.
The woods here gave hidden routes for smugglers to move goods to and from the loch. It is said that whisky was an important commodity in such undercover operations at Abriachan.
If a newly wed couple needed a house, relatives and neighbours would help them build it using the resources the wood provided.
The “Coffin Track” runs through the wood, and would have been the last route local people took to their final resting place, carried on the shoulders of their kinsmen.
