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Inchnacardoch Caves [Overview]

Inchnacardoch Wood, Fort Augustus, Invernessshire.

Generic Reference to Inchnacardoch's presumed caves. The area has not the correct geology for limestone caves so the caves mentioned are probably fissures and boulder caves or possibly just shadowed and overgrown, narrow ravines. Coordinates are for the Inchnacardoch Hotel. There are no caves at this location.

Poetic work 'A Journal from Glasgow to Laggan', 1774, addressed to Mrs Furzer.

And vainly think my trembling hand, Can still that rustic lyre command, Which once, when youth and fancy bloom'd, Through Inchnacardoch's caves presum'd, To call sweet echo to my aid, And every wood-nymph of the shade, And every Naiad of the waves, Where Ness romantic mountains laves, To tell what joys my soul possesst, When you and Nature fir'd my breast: When in the Penseroso grot. [A.M. Grant]

A beautiful recess so named by NANCY. It is formed by the steepy wooded banks of a turbulent mountain stream, where a large circular bason is worn deep in its rocky channel, and where the water seems to repose after its rapid journey down the mountain. Ivy and woodbine hang over this recess in natural festoons, and the spirit of freshness, which seems to reside there exclusively, encourages wild flowers in every crevice; there the wind never blew but in mild whispers; there the sun never shone but through green curtains: Whoever wishes to see this grot, has only to trace the midmost of three sister streams that descend from the hills of Inchnacardoch on the road to Portclair by Fort Augustus. [A.M. Grant] Possibly a waterfall near NH 37782 10874.

On the land side, as you approach, the house of Inchnacardoch is seen above, with gently rising hills, plains, and cultivated to the top, but having broken and rocky side: from these three sister-brooks, or burns, to use the country language, descend. They are nearly parallel with each other, and, like other mountain streams, are very picturesque, with little cascades and shrubby borders.

In the middle one is concealed a recess, with which scarce any of the people in the neighbourhood are acquainted. The stream in its descent seems to be lost between two rocky projections, near the steep height above; and after being for a space invisible, it appears a considerable way below.

If any curious traveler has the hardiness to clamber up to the place where the stream quits its concealment, and then to dive down through the clefts, from which it issues, he will be rewarded by the sight of a grotto, which, if he be at all classical, or even fanciful, will remind him strongly of the cave in Ithaca, which Homer describes as the secret haunt of the nymphs, and where Ulysses hid his treasure. In passing even very near it, the wanderer is not aware of this concealed beauty, until descending into the recess, you meet with a prodigious square stone, in the shape of a table, which seems to have been detached from above, and almost blocks up the entrance. Passing the stone, a round basin of exquisite beauty, bordered with apparent seats, over which spring the most luxuriant flowers and herbage, receive the falling waters, after they have, in the secrecy of the impending rocks, formed themselves into three small cascades above. In this recess the wind never blows, nor does any thing noxious enter. There is space enough, admitted from above, to give abundance of light, and to cheer the wild hyacinths and primroses, which grow in rich profusion around, where sheltering warmth, and the perpetual freshness of the waterfalls, cherish unfading verdure and undecaying beauty in this romantic recess, which nature seems to have hid from vulgar eyes, and kept sacred for her contemplative votaries, who worship her in secret haunts. Long streamers of ivy and honey-suckle, fragrant with the moisture of the spray, hang pendant from the lofty openings, over this grotto, which cannot be properly called a cave, having a partial aperture above, and abounding in vegetation.

Two young ladies [Nancy and Louisa], who were, or thought themselves discoverers of this beautiful retreat, about thirty years since, took great pleasure in frequenting it, giving it the name of the Penseroso Grotto. Since then, I believe few intruders have disturbed the water-nymph in her sheltered retreat. [Spence]

Alternative Names: None recorded.