The West Highland Museum – Jacobite Rooms and Seafood Lunch
A few hours, from Fort William station and back.
The route
The West Highland Museum fills eight rooms of an old stone building on Cameron Square in the middle of Fort William, with Jacobite treasures, a hidden portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the story of Lochaber's glens.
It's free, and on the same square Crannog, one of the town's best-known seafood restaurants, serves lunch every day. It's an easy few hours on a wet day.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is Woodlands Glencoe, 10 miles away. Sleeps 2.
Book lunch at Crannog at Garrison West
Book a lunch table at Crannog at Garrison West for about 12.30pm, online on its booking calendar, on 01397 701873 or by email: lunch is served every day from noon, with the last booking at 2.30pm.
The day
Fort William
A short walk from the station down the High Street, an hour or more among the Jacobite rooms, then a long seafood lunch a few steps away.
About three hours
West Highland Museum
It's a 7-minute walk from the station down the pedestrian High Street to Cameron Square, where the West Highland Museum stands behind a red door under a carved MUSEUM lintel. If you come by car, the Viewforth car park beside the square is pay and display. Entry is free, with a box for donations, and the museum opens Monday to Saturday from 10am; it shuts on Sundays outside the summer. Give it an hour to an hour and a half. Look for the secret portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie: a blur of paint that only becomes his face when a curved mirror is stood on it. The mirror could be whisked away whenever his supporters needed to hide their loyalty. There's pine panelling from the governor's room of the old fort that gave the town its name, and a copper plate the Prince had made for printing banknotes. Other rooms tell of the clans, the commandos who trained nearby and the wildlife of the glens. The building is old and spread over three floors, with stairlifts to the upper rooms, and well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome inside.
7 min on foot
Crannog at Garrison West
Lunch
Lunch is at Crannog at Garrison West, on the same square, a few steps from the museum door. Crannog's seafood restaurant has moved here from the Town Pier, with pub food and a bar alongside. Lunch is served from noon every day, with the last booking at 2.30pm, and a table is best booked for about 12.30pm, online, on 01397 701873 or by email. If it's full, the Highland Cinema's restaurant is on the same square. It's 7 minutes' walk back to the station.
If it rains
All of it is under a roof: only the 7-minute walk from the station and the few steps across Cameron Square are out in the rain.
