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Culloden Viaduct – Clava Cairns loop from Balloch

Routes

Hiking trails & Routes

Culloden Viaduct – Clava Cairns loop from Balloch

Moderate

hikers

Culloden Viaduct – Clava Cairns loop from Balloch

02:32

9.21km

160m

Hiking

Moderate hike. Good fitness required. Easily-accessible paths. Suitable for all skill levels. The starting point of the route is accessible with public transport.

Last updated: May 21, 2026

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Bus stop

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3.21 km

The River Nairn rises in the Monadhliath Mountains of the Scottish Highlands. From here it flows 35 miles northeast through Strathnairn, passing Culloden Moor, site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, before entering the Moray Firth at Nairn.

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4.15 km

Culloden Viaduct

Highlight • Historical Site

The Culloden viaduct was designed by Chief Engineer Murdoch Paterson and built by the Highland railway. Its impressive 29 arches span both the valley and River Nairn. Opened in 1889 and still used today as the main rail link into the Highlands. The longest masonry viaduct in Scotland, it is 1800ft (549m) long and is a Category A listed structure.

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4.63 km

Clava Cairns

Highlight • Natural Monument

Clava cairns are a localized form of Late Neolithic megalithic structures in Scotland. Twelve of these only about 50 artificial round mounds are in the county of Inverness-shire. The best known and eponymous are the three not particularly large ones from Balnuaran of Clava, east of Inverness. A stray phenomenon is the cairn of Carmahome on the Isle of Arran.
Set within a circle of megalithic curbs is the mound of crushed stone, reminiscent of the layout of later Breochs. Inside is the round chamber formed by megaliths, to which a fenced corridor leads. Clava cairns are regularly surrounded by an outer stone circle that surrounds the cairn at a distance of 10-15 meters. The tiered stones of this circle, formed of relatively few stones, are at their greatest height opposite the approach to the cairn, which faces south-west. These features also appear on the Bronze Age ring cairns that occur in the same area. Therefore, it is assumed that the structural similarity points to a contemporary origin. Another context is with the stone circles on the River Dee, which are also tiered in height.
The cairns of the Balnuaran of Clava are flat and therefore, unlike the Corrimony Cairn, the passages are uncovered. Corrimony is a well-preserved specimen, set in a circle of eleven standing stones at Cannich, a few miles west of Loch Ness. A stone with cup and ring markings is also found here. Some of the stones on the grounds at Clava in Lagmore West and at the Cairn of Gask also have cups. Avielochan, about 17 km north-east of Grantown-on-Spey (Morayshire) and "Cairn Irenan", seven km north-north-west of Dingwall (Ross-shire) are more difficult to recognize specimens of the clava type because of vegetation.

Translated by Google •

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