Glenfinnan Monument & Visitor Centre

The Glenfinnan Monument stands at the head of Loch Shiel, where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard on 19 August 1745 to mark the start of the second Jacobite Rising. The slim stone column at the loch shore was built in 1815, funded by Alexander Macdonald of Glenaladale and topped with a statue of an anonymous Highlander, a commemoration of the men who followed Charlie rather than of Charlie himself. The visitor centre across the road carries the wider story of the Rising and the years between Glenfinnan and the field at Culloden eight months later.

The site is also the best public viewing point for the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the 21-arch concrete viaduct carrying the West Highland Line over the head of the glen, opened in 1901 and made internationally famous a hundred years later as the route of the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express. Steam trains (the Jacobite, operated by West Coast Railways) cross several times a day from late spring through autumn; a steady footpath from the car park leads up onto a viewpoint above the viaduct, and the timetable is published so visitors can time their walk for a train.

Loch Shiel itself runs eighteen miles south-west from Glenfinnan to Acharacle, separating Moidart from Sunart and the Ardnamurchan peninsula; the Loch Shiel ferry runs the length of it in summer.

Café, shop and toilets at the visitor centre. The car park fills early through the main season. Current opening and any timed-ticket arrangements at the NTS Glenfinnan page.