Qualla: Ballachulish https://qualla.com/ballachulish en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ballachulish https://qualla.com/ballachulish Ballachulish: Introduction https://qualla.com/ballachulish/ Photo credit Euan Nelson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1693, slate quarrying started at East Laroch, exactly one year after the Glencoe Massacre had reordered who lived in the surrounding glens. For the next two and a half centuries the Ballachulish slate roofed much of Edinburgh and Glasgow. By the time the quarries closed in 1955 they had cut so much rock that the mountains around the village were ringed with waste tips. The slate also has a quiet tell: pyrite crystals embedded in the rock rust and fall out when exposed to weather, leaving clean square holes and brown streaks. Over three-quarters of what came out of the ground was never usable. Look at a Victorian Edinburgh roof and the slate is from here. Look at the holes where pyrite used to be.

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Image: Euan Nelson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/gfh6-ballachulish-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ballachulish: Village by the Narrows https://qualla.com/ballachulish/ Photo credit Markus Trienke, CC BY-SA 2.0. In Gaelic, Baile a' Chaolais means the village by the narrows, and the narrows in question are Caolas Mhic Phadraig, Peter or Patrick's son's narrows, at the mouth of Loch Leven. Until 1927 no road reached the head of the loch, so getting east-west across this country meant the B...

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Image: Markus Trienke | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/gfh6-ballachulish-village-by-the-narrows.mp3 0:06 2 full Ballachulish: The Slate and the Strike https://qualla.com/ballachulish/ Photo credit Frank Garvock, CC BY-SA 2.0. Ballachulish slate is good slate. It split cleanly, weathered well, and lasted on a roof for the better part of a century. The two great Scottish cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, used it on their tenements and townhouses through the entire Victorian era. The quarrymen who cut it li...

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Image: Frank Garvock | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/gfh6-ballachulish-the-slate-and-the-strike.mp3 0:06 3 full Ballachulish: The Red Fox and James of the Glen https://qualla.com/ballachulish/ Photo credit Chris Downer, CC BY-SA 2.0. Overlooking the narrows is a monument to James Stewart of Acharn, known as James of the Glen, hanged on the spot for a crime of which he was not guilty. The crime was the assassination of Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, the Red Fox, government factor on the forfeited Stewart estat...

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Image: Chris Downer | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/gfh6-ballachulish-the-red-fox-and-james-of-the-glen.mp3 0:06 4 full Ballachulish: Trains, Ferries, and Ghost Stories https://qualla.com/ballachulish/ Photo credit My another account (talk), CC0. In 1903 the Callander and Oban Railway opened a branch to Ballachulish. The line closed in 1966, the year the village's slate mountains and the post-war Highland economy were both running down. The old terminus at Laroch is now the doctor's surgery. The station at Kentallen, five...

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Image: My another account (talk) | CC0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/6/ballachulish-wp/gfh6-ballachulish-trains-ferries-and-ghost-stories.mp3 0:06 5 full