D. K. Broster is as meticulously accurate about geography as she is about history. Most of the locations named and described in The Flight of the Heron are real, and much of the action of the book can be followed on a suitable map; I highly recommend grabbing the large-scale Ordnance Survey maps of the relevant areas and tracing out the characters’ movements through your favourite chapters.
This page illustrates and goes into more detail on the real and fictional geography of the book, using some photos of the locations and surroundings. All photos not otherwise credited are my own.
| I. | Map to illustrate events | |
| II. | Real locations | |
| 1. | Lochaber and the Great Glen | |
| 2. | Edinburgh | |
| 3. | Morar | |
| III. | Fictional locations | |
| 1. | Ardroy and Loch na h-Iolaire | |
| 2. | Beinn Laoigh/Ben Loy | |
The first edition of the book includes a lovely map showing the Great Glen and surrounding parts of the Highlands, where much of the book is set. This map seems to have been dropped from most—perhaps all—later editions, which is a great shame. You may observe that the background image of this website comes from the ornamental detail of this very map!
...a narrow stone structure whose elevation above the river-bed had earned it the name of High Bridge.
Here is High Bridge, which is indeed well-named! Although it’s a ruin today, it survived for a fairly long time after the period of Flight of the Heron; Wikipedia has a photo of it still intact in 1899. The modern-day footpath leading to the bridge follows the route of Wade’s road for a little way on the eastern side of the Spean. Between the oblique angle at which the road approaches the river, the woodland cover and the steep banks, you really can’t see the bridge at all until you’re almost upon it; those ‘eleven men and a piper!’ chose the place for their ambush well.
The next obstacle was a river, which he had to cross as best he could on insecure and slippery stones, and the difficulties of doing this with an injured ankle took his mind off remoter possibilities...
This is the River Garry, which Keith crosses in chapter 1.1, near where it flows into Loch Oich. Crossing on foot with an injured ankle would certainly present serious difficulties—I’m impressed at Keith’s feat!
Keith Windham looked for cover, but here there was none convenient as a while ago...
Loch Oich side, northeast of the River Garry; near the site of Ewen and Keith’s first meeting. The area is now covered with spruce and other trees, so we must imagine what it would look like with more open ground:
... on the stretch of level ground at the head of Loch Shiel, among that wild and lonely scenery, a thousand Highland throats acclaimed the fair-haired young man standing below the folds of his banner, and the very air seemed to flash with the glitter of their drawn blades.
The view along Loch Shiel at Glenfinnan. I hardly need to say that it’s very picturesque and romantical indeed; Charles Edward Stuart certainly knew how to choose his scene.
...Ewen cut away the trailing rope from his other ankle, pocketed it, and started to plunge on as fast as he could among the birch and rowan trees, the moss-covered stones and the undergrowth of Spean side.
The banks of the Spean, a little way downstream from High Bridge, where Ewen hides after escaping from the troopers in chapter 5.1. It’s seriously precipitous, and would definitely be an effective place to hide!
And there he had seen the pitiful charred remains left by vengeance of Lochiel’s house of Achnacarry, almost as dear to him as his own.
This is all that now remains of the old Achnacarry House, burned down by Government soldiers in 1746: a very well-ivied chimney piece. It stands in the grounds of the new house near Loch Arkaig, where the present Lochiel still lives and where the Clan Cameron Museum—very well worth a visit—is located.
For Prince Charles and his Highlanders held the town, but not the Castle, secure on its lofty and impregnable rock...
Edinburgh Castle looming on its rock above the Old Town. Photo by Kim Traynor via Wikimedia Commons.
But at the other end of the town Holyrood House was lit up, for there was dancing to-night in the long gallery under the eyes of that unprepossessing series of early Scottish kings due to the brush of an ill-inspired Dutchman . . . and under a pair of much more sparkling ones. For the Prince was gay to-night...
Holyroodhouse Palace, where Charles Edward Stuart held court during the ’45. Photo by Alli Caulfield, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Great Gallery at Holyroodhouse Palace, the scene of the ball in chapter 2.1. The paintings are a series of portraits of Scottish monarchs made by Dutch painter Jacob de Wet upon the orders of Charles II. Photo by Otto Domes, via Wikimedia Commons.
...an old lady, but no doubt charming, and certainly loyal—who dwells at the corner of the West Bow and the Grassmarket.”
The house at the corner of the West Bow and the Grassmarket. Since that description is fairly precise, and at least part of this house is certainly old enough to have been there in 1745, I can say with some confidence that this is Lady Easterhall’s house, where Ewen and Keith have their second meeting in Part II.
“The entrance, however, is neither here nor in the West Bow, but up a close leading out of the Grassmarket, so Murray says.”
As can be seen in the photo above, there’s no such close immediately on the other side of the real house. But there is a real close, Castle Wynd, which as its name suggests leads from Castle Hill down onto the Grassmarket; it’s a bit further along in real life, and I think Broster moved it eastwards towards the house in service of her plot. This photo shows the northern part of Castle Wynd leading down from Castle Hill; it’s pretty steep, with a lot of stairs!
Here is the southern part of Castle Wynd, showing its egress onto the Grassmarket:
The descriptions of Morar Bay in chapter 5.5 are precise and largely accurate, and as with much of the rest of the book Keith’s movements can be followed on a map. Here are some pictures of the scene.
Quartered himself at Arisaig, he thence patrolled the coast in both directions, from Loch nan Uamh, the Adventurer’s original landing-place, to Morar of the white sands on the other...
The beach at Morar, with white sand. Photo by Luzula.
Keith gave his horse to his orderly, and going along a low spur of rock gazed steadily out to sea.
A possible candidate for the ‘low spur of rock’. The features on the ground don’t perfectly match Broster’s descriptions; possibly, as with the wynd in Edinburgh, she moved different parts of the beach closer together for narrative convenience. Photo by Hyarrowen.
Once more he plunged down the sandy slope [...] He looked round for shelter, and slipped cautiously into a high bush of hazel which itself stood in a patch of shadow so deep that he felt sure of being invisible.
A sandy slope with sheltering trees above the beach, further inland towards the river; one possible location for the fatal spot itself. Photo by Hyarrowen.
You’ll note that the map above helpfully informs the reader that ‘Two sites on this map are fictitious’. These are 1) the glen of Ardroy and Loch na h-Iolaire and 2) Beinn Laoigh or Ben Loy; with or without the map, it's possible to work out their locations fairly precisely from the text of the book.
The glen of Ardroy corresponds to a real small glen in between Glengarry and Lochiel’s lands around Loch Arkaig. The narrow pass in the southeast, which leads up from the side of Loch Lochy along the course of the Allt Glas-Dhoire burn, is where Ewen brings Keith in chapter 1.2 after taking him captive.
The pass viewed from across Loch Lochy:
Ascending the pass:
When Ewen and Keith reach the top of the pass they head westwards, ‘in the face of the sunset afterglow’, and the house of Ardroy is in front of them; they then ‘skirt the end of the little lake’ to reach it, suggesting that the house is in the southwest corner of the glen. Ewen apologises for the steepness of the route, saying that he wouldn’t normally come that way; there is an easier route from the southwest up from Achnacarry along Gleann Cia-aig, which is presumably Ewen’s usual route. Here is Ewen and Keith's view from the top of the pass:
In the foreground is the course of the Allt Càm Bhealaich burn; Gleann Cia-aig runs off into the far left-hand corner, with the river Abhainn Chia-aig visible in the distance.
Loch na h-Iolaire is ‘little more than a mile long, and ... a quarter of a mile wide’ and ‘set in a level space as wide as itself’. The shape of the real glen suggests that the loch runs roughly north-south between Meall an Tagraidh and Sròn a Choire Ghairbh, where it would fit quite neatly into the relatively flat area; you can imagine its southern end fitting into the picture above. It could be an extension of the real but much smaller Lochan Fhùdair. Although it apparently extends north-south, Loch na h-Iolaire has a northern shore (where Lachlan stands in the prologue); I would guess that its direction is angled slightly northwest-southeast so that the northern part of the eastern side, or perhaps the northeast corner, could be called the northern shore. The creag ruadh is on the (north-)eastern bank somewhere near the middle (it’s on the same side of the loch that Lachlan is standing in the prologue; later, Ewen and Alison sit ‘[b]etween the red crag and the spot where he had rated his foster-brother that morning’, and Ben Tee is behind them).
In chapter 5.2 Ewen travels to Ardroy from Achnacarry, via Gleann Cia-aig. He reaches ‘the spot where, after crossing the Allt Buidhe burn, one used to discern the chimneys of the house of Ardroy between the pines of the avenue’. This is the clearest description of the (fictional) Allt Buidhe burn, which is probably a tributary of Abhainn Chia-aig; it may have the same course as the real Allt Coire Odhar Beag, which flows from east to west across the southern end of the glen, or it might flow out of the loch to join Abhainn Chia-aig. Since this is apparently the main route to Ardroy, the pine avenue probably points southwest along the road to Achnacarry.
Slochd nan Eun, home of the MacMartins, is in the hills near Ardroy. In chapter 1.3 Keith goes ‘along the bank of the loch’ and ‘follow[s] the path round to the far side’, before following another path ‘away from the loch’. With the house in the southwest corner, ‘the far side’ is presumably the eastern shore, which puts Slochd nan Eun east or perhaps northeast of the loch.
Of course the Camerons of Ardroy are fictional, so what was the position of this piece of land in real history? A 1770s map of the Lochiel estate on display in the Clan Cameron museum at Achnacarry, while it does not show the area directly, states that ‘All the Lands on this [the northern] Side of the Loch [Loch Arkaig] belong to the Estate of Lochiel. March with Glen Gary’. ‘Ardroy’, then, was probably part of Lochiel’s own lands in real history rather than belonging to a Cameron sept.
Glengarry, while it appears under its own name in The Flight of the Heron, is fictionalised as Glenshian in The Dark Mile, where Finlay MacPhair of Glenshian (a thinly disguised version of the real Jacobite traitor and spy Alastair MacDonell of Glengarry) is Ewen’s next-door neighbour.
The name Ardroy, or àird ruadh in Gaelic, means ‘red height’; as Broster explains, this is in reference to the creag ruadh, but I rather like it as a pun on Ewen’s appearance! There is a real Ardroy in Lochgoilhead in the southwestern Highlands, which seems to be most notable for its outdoor education centre. Loch na h-Iolaire, as explained in the book, means ‘the eagle’s lake’; there are a couple of different real places with this name.
I don’t think the location of Beinn Laoigh/Ben Loy can be deduced so precisely from the text as that of Ardroy, but the map places it here, just north of where the River Tarff starts to bend southwest, and I think this is consistent with the text. In chapter 3.3 Keith leaves the military road between Inverness and Fort Augustus ‘just before the road reared itself from the levels of Whitebridge to climb to its highest elevation’, hoping to find a short cut to the Corryarrick pass, and it’s on this journey—after getting lost in the hills, which makes the exact route rather difficult to trace!—that he encounters Ewen at the shieling hut and saves him from Guthrie. Guthrie’s camp is on the military road between Fort Augustus and the Corryarrick, ‘some miles from the top of the pass’; on the way there from Beinn Laoigh, Keith and Guthrie cross the Tarff, and on the way back to help Ewen the distance is ‘not so great as he [Keith] had feared’. Beinn Laoigh is therefore north of the Tarff, west of the Corryarrick, and sufficiently far west that the road—which at this point is heading southeast towards the pass—is not too far away. I might put it slightly farther west than the map, but that's a guess. In real life there’s a plateau at this spot, with several small tarns, above where the ground rises steeply away from the river; in the book’s geography the slope might be more gentle near the river (it doesn’t seem to be very precipitous on Keith’s and Guthrie’s journey) with more of a mountain summit further up.
This photo was taken from Wade’s road between Fort Augustus and the Corryarrick pass, and shows Glen Tarff somewhat west of the location of Beinn Laoigh:
The name Beinn Laoigh is Gaelic for ‘the calf’s mountain’; there is a real mountain in Argyll with this name (usually Anglicised as Ben Lui rather than Loy).
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