Town in Scottish Highlands, Scotland
Fort William
Fort William lost its fort to a railway, started life as a settlement named after a queen, and sits under the mountain that inspired a Nobel Prize-winning invention.
Key information
- County
- Scottish Highlands
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 10,500 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Ben Nevis, the Jacobite steam train, outdoor sport, the Caledonian Canal
- Famous people
- C.T.R. Wilson, Clement Wragge, Kenny Stuart, General George Monck
About Fort William
The town that lost its fort
Fort William is named after a fort that has largely vanished. General Monck's Cromwellian troops built a turf fort here in 1654 to keep the Highlands in line. In 1690 it was rebuilt in stone and named after King William III. The settlement outside its walls was named Maryburgh, after his wife and co-ruler, Queen Mary II. The garrison saw serious action in the Jacobite risings. It held out against attack during the 1745 rebellion, and in 1746 a Jacobite siege failed after weeks of bombardment. Then came the railway. Much of the fort was demolished in the 1890s to make way for the West Highland Railway, which opened in 1894. Only fragments of its walls survive today. The town took the fort's name, and the fort itself largely disappeared.
Britain's highest mountain is in the back garden
Ben Nevis rises to 1,345 metres (4,413 feet) just outside the town. It is the highest mountain in the British Isles, and thousands of walkers climb it every year by the Mountain Track from Glen Nevis. From 1883 to 1904 the summit had a manned weather observatory, staffed through some brutal winters. The Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge famously climbed the mountain daily in 1881 to take readings, before the observatory opened. A young Cambridge physicist, C.T.R. Wilson, spent a few weeks there in 1894. The glowing rings of light that appear around a climber's shadow on cloud, known as glories, fascinated him. He tried to recreate cloud in the laboratory, and that work led to the cloud chamber. It was a device for tracking subatomic particles and won him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927.
Running up a mountain, very fast
The Ben Nevis Race is one of the toughest in Britain. Runners climb to the summit and come straight back down, and the race has been run in its modern form since 1937. The record, set by Kenny Stuart in 1984, is 1 hour 25 minutes and 34 seconds for the whole round trip. That is a Fort William habit. Nearby Aonach Mòr, home of the Nevis Range gondola, hosts a world-famous downhill mountain bike course. The town has hosted UCI Mountain Bike World Cup events for years and staged world championships in 2007 and again in 2023. All of which helps explain the town's nickname, the Outdoor Capital of the UK. It is also where the West Highland Way finishes after 96 miles from Milngavie.
Staircases, viaducts and a very wet railway
At Banavie, just outside the town, Neptune's Staircase lifts boats up eight locks on the Caledonian Canal. Thomas Telford designed it and it opened in 1822. It is the longest staircase lock in Britain. The West Highland Railway reached Fort William in 1894. Today the steam-hauled Jacobite service runs to Mallaig across the curved Glenfinnan Viaduct, which became world-famous thanks to the Harry Potter films. Glenfinnan is also where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in 1745, so the line crosses both film history and real history.
Whisky, aluminium and water power
Fort William has some unlikely industry for a Highland town. Ben Nevis Distillery was founded in 1825 by John McDonald, known as 'Long John', and still makes whisky at the foot of the mountain. In the 1920s the British Aluminium Company built a smelter here, powered by water from the Highland hills. A tunnel about 15 miles long carries water from Loch Treig to the plant. The smelter was one of the Highlands' first big industrial employers and shaped the town's growth in the 20th century. Today the water is still put to work, and the rain, which Fort William gets plenty of, is the town's most dependable natural resource.
Football, shinty and the Highland scene
Fort William FC play in the North Caledonian Football League at Claggan Park, in the shadow of Ben Nevis. They were relegated from the Highland League in 2022. Few grounds in Britain have a view like it. The local sport that matters even more is shinty, the Gaelic stick-and-ball game, which is played fiercely across Lochaber. The Commando Memorial at nearby Spean Bridge, a short drive away, looks out over the same landscape where Second World War commandos trained in the surrounding hills.