Banks of the Caledonian Canal

A walk alongside - and underneath - Thomas Telford's masterpiece of civil engineering.

Distance 4.5 miles (7.2km)

Minimum time 1hr 45min

Ascent/gradient 100ft (30m)

Level of difficulty Easy

Paths Wide tow paths, no stiles

Landscape Banks of wide canal, shore of tidal loch

Suggested map aqua3 OS Explorer 392 Ben Nevis & Fort William

Start/finish NN 097768

Dog friendliness Sensible dogs off lead on tow path

Parking Kilmallie Hall, Corpach

Public toilets At start

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Directions
Background
Information

1 Go down past Corpach Station to the canal and cross the sea lock that separates salt water from fresh water. Follow the canal (on your left) up past another lock, where a path on the right has a blue footpath sign and a Great Glen Way marker. It passes under tall sycamores to the shore. Follow the shoreline path past a football pitch and then turn left, across damp grass to a road sign that warns motorists of a nearby playground. A path ahead leads up a wooded bank to the tow path.

2 Turn right along the tow path, for ½ mile (800m). Just before the Banavie swing bridge, a path down to the right has a Great Glen Way marker. Follow waymarkers on street signs to a level crossing, then turn left towards the other swing bridge, the one with the road on it.

3 Just before the bridge, turn right at signs for the Great Glen Way and the Great Glen Cycle Route and continue along the tow path to Neptune's Staircase. The fanciful name was given to the locks by Telford himself. The 60ft (18m) of ascent alongside the eight locks is the serious uphill part of this walk, but more serious for boats of course. It takes about 90 minutes to work through the system. As each lock fills, slow roiling currents come up from underneath, like bath water emptying but in reverse, and as each empties, water forced under pressure into the banks emerges from the masonry in little fountains.

4 A gate marks the top of the locks. About 200yds (183m) later, a grey gate on the right leads to a dump for dead cars; ignore this one. Over the next 100yds (91m) the canal crosses a little wooded valley, with a black fence on the right. Now comes a second grey gate. Go through, to a track turning back sharp right and descending to ford a small stream.

5 On the right, the stream passes right under the canal in an arched tunnel, and alongside is a second tunnel which provides a walkers' way to the other side. Water from the canal drips into the tunnel, which has a fairly spooky atmosphere - try not to think of the large boats sailing directly over your head! At the tunnel's end, a track runs up to join the canal's northern tow path. Turn right, back down the tow path. After passing Neptune's Staircase, cross the A830 to a level crossing without warning lights. Continue along the right-hand tow path. After a mile (1.6km) the tow path track leads back to the Corpach double lock.

The first survey for a coast-to-coast canal across Scotland was made in 1767 by James Watt, the steam engine inventor, in the aftermath of Culloden. The Commissioners of Forfeited Estates had their hands on much of the land, and the canal fitted into their plans for civilising the Highlands and bringing them into the industrialised world.

But it was the Napoleonic War that finally sent the men with the wheelbarrows up to Fort William in 1803. Despite the fact that nature had already provided 38 miles (61km) of the route, the canal was still a tremendous feat of civil engineering. Roughly 200 million wheelbarrow loads of earth were shifted over the next 19 years. Each of its 29 locks was designed to accommodate the width and length of a 40-gun frigate of Nelson's navy, four aqueducts let streams and rivers pass below the waterway, and there was a dam on Loch Lochy and diversion of the rivers Oich and Lochy. Loch Oich needed to be deepened, and for this task a steam dredger had to be not just built, but invented and designed. And before a single turf was shifted, the first essential, a brewery was required to supply the thousands of thirsty navvies.

For this great enterprise, only one name was seriously considered: Thomas Telford. Scotland has a tradition of self-made men, but even here Telford's beginnings were unusually unhopeful. His destitute mother raised her boy supported by neighbours and by casual work as a milkmaid. Apprenticed to a stonemason, Telford worked on a new bridge for his home town of Langholm, while educating himself in Burns, Milton and chemistry out of books lent by the local gentry. The poet laureate Robert Southey referred to him as 'Pontifex Maximus', the Biggest Bridge-builder. As well as the old-style stone, Telford became a master of two entirely new techniques - the cast iron arch and the first suspension bridges. While working on the Caledonian Canal, he was also building 600 miles (nearly 1,000km) of new roads and enlarging most of Scotland's harbours.

Even Telford's masonry crumbles eventually, and after a century of neglect, the canal at the end of the 1900s was on the verge of closure. In 1996 the government promised £20 million for a complete refurbishment: 'Canals have a great future'. And for those without boats, the tow path has been resurfaced as a cycleway from coast to coast, with a new National Trail, the Great Glen Way, running in parallel.

While you're there

Much to Telford's distress, the canal was a loss-making enterprise from the day it opened. One reason was the coming of the railways. At Banavie, the West Highland Railway is Britain's most beautiful. During the summer, the steam-powered Jacobite Steam Train runs daily to Mallaig and back.

What to look for

From Fort William, Britain's biggest hill appears as a mere hump. The canalside, however, gives the best view into the great Northern Corrie of Ben Nevis. On its right-hand side, ranged one behind the other, rise the buttresses of the country's largest crag. Across the back runs a narrow edge of granite, linking it to the neighbouring Carn Mor Dearg. This arête is the mountaineers route on to the big Ben.

Where to eat and drink

The Moorings Inn at Banavie offers restaurant and bar meals to canal users and visitors. On the other side of both the A830 and canal, the unassuming Lochy family pub has picnic tables and promises 'massive portions'. At the walk start, a Spar shop on the main road sells hot pies and the Kilmallie Hall has a community garden with picnic tables to eat them at.