WALK 3

Duncan Ban Monument (1 to 1½ hours)
Enter Monument Hill and follow Old Military Road to top. Road was built by English soldiers around 1750 as part of a network aimed at pacifying the Highland clans and is still well-maintained as far as the monument, which stands on the highest point, an old beacon hill (550 feet above sea-level)

The granite rotunda was erected in the 19th century to celebrate Dounchadh Ban McIntyre, the Robbie Burns of the Gaels. 'Fair' Duncan was born in a now deserted township in Glen Orchy, near Loch Tulla, in 1724. He fought ingloriously at the Battle of Falkirk (1745) on the 'wrong' side and composed a humorous song about it which pleased the Earl of Breadalbane, who appointed him stalker on his forest of Ben Dorain. He worked there some 20 years and composed his greatest songs - 'Song of the Misty Corrie' and 'In Praise of Ben Dorain' among others.

We like to think that his popularity was in part due to his spirited defence of people against sheep during the traumatic times of the Highland clearances : (in translation)

'My blessing with the foxes dwell
For that they hunt the sheep so well.
Ill fa' the sheep, a grey-faced nation
That swept our hills with desolation!....

A partly resurfaced track at the bottom of Duncan Ban's hill, skirting the TV mast emplacement, offers a continuation of your walk down to the A819, Inveraray road.