Loch Achray is a small freshwater loch

Loch

Loch is the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word for a lake or a sea inlet. It has been anglicised as lough, although this is pronounced the same way as loch. Some lochs could also be called a firth, fjord, estuary, strait or bay...

 11 kilometres west of Callander

Callander

Callander is a burgh in the region of Stirling, Scotland, situated on the River Teith. The town is located in the former county of Perthshire and is a popular tourist stop to and from the Highlands....

 in Stirling district, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

The loch lies between Loch Katrine

Loch Katrine

Loch Katrine is a freshwater loch in the district of Stirling, Scotland. It is roughly 8 miles long by 2/3 of a mile wide and runs the length of Strath Gartney...

 and Loch Venachar

Loch Venachar

Loch Venachar is a freshwater loch in Stirling district, Scotland, situated between Callander and Brig o' Turk...

 in the heart of the Trossachs and has an average depth of 11 metres. The south side of the loch is wooded

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

 and well served by woodland tracks and forest roads. The loch is popular with anglers

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 who fish for brown trout

Brown trout

The brown trout and the sea trout are fish of the same species....

. Loch Achray is well known for its sheltered location, giving rise to placid waters offering magnificent reflections of the woodland to the south, the mountains and forests to the north and the majestic crags of Ben Venue

Ben venue

Ben Venue is a mountain in the Trossachs area of Scotland. The name Ben Venue is derived from the Scottish Gaelic words meaning "the small mountain". The summit lies approximately 2 kilometres south-west of the pier at the southern end of Loch Katrine...

 to the west.

History

Loch Achray was for a time the home of James "Beg" Stewart

James "Beg" Stewart

James "Beag" Stewart of Baldorran was the seventh illegitimate son of James Mor Stewart , who fled into exile in Ireland when his father Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany was executed for treason by James I of Scotland in 1425...

 (c1410-1470) of Baldorran, the son of James Mor Stewart

James the Fat

James Mor Stewart, called James the Fat, was the youngest son of Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany and Isabella of Lennox. When his father and brothers were executed by King James I for treason in 1425, James led a rebellion against the king, taking the town of Dumbarton and killing the keeper of...

 (known as "James the Fat"), who fled into exile in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 when his father Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany was executed for treason by James I of Scotland

James I of Scotland

James I, King of Scots , was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons...

 in 1425. James the Fat would never return to Scotland, and he was unable to inherit the Albany estates, but James "Beag" Stewart was able to secure a royal pardon and return to Scotland. He is the ancestor of the Stewarts of Ardvorlich on Lochearnside

Loch Earn

Loch Earn is a freshwater loch in the central highlands of Scotland, in the districts of Perth and Kinross and Stirling...

, whose family history is recounted by Sir Walter Scott in A Legend of Montrose

A Legend of Montrose

A Legend of Montrose is an historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, set in Scotland in the 1640s during the Civil War. It forms, along with The Bride of Lammermoor, the 3rd series of Scott's Tales of My Landlord...

.

Stewart had a small hunting lodge on the small island at the west end of Loch Achray, "to which he resorted on any sudden emergency as a place of safety". Alexander Campbell, writing in 1812, tells the following story:

"It happened that a party of Argyleshire Campbells made an excursion to the King's forests of Glenartney and Glensinglais, whereof he [Stewart] was the keeper, and killed a great many of the deer and roebucks, without so much as asking the permission of Little James. The Argyleshire hunters, weary with the chase, and returning in quest of some habitation...met little James nearly opposite the small island on which his hut was situated, and inquiring of him what Magpie had built his nest on that island, he answered, 'One that hath scorned all manner of greedy hawks, from whatever quarter they might chance to come'. 'Tell the magpie from us (said the hunters) that we are no less disposed to hawk than to hunt around his nest; and tell him further, that we shall soon be on this way again, and mean to visit the nest of this vain chatterer: perhaps our hawks may not impress him with a mean opinion of their skill and dexterity in seizing their prey. Little James, somewhat nettled at the threatened visitation, peevishly replied; 'it may happen, likewise, that this chattering magpie, by the time your hawks have arrived within sight of his nest, by a singular power which he has over the hawks of these wooded mountains and glens, having called them in council, they may be prevailed on to suffer no strange hawks to infringe on their liberties, at least to within the range that they and their ancestors have for a length of time been accustomed.' So saying, they parted. In due time the Campbells kept their word; and Little James, having gathered his people from the various glens over which his influence extended, gave the meeting to the Argyleshire party in so warm a manner, that few returned to give an account of the hawking match for which they so merrily departed.