Click a point to jump to its film.
From the road Coire Gabhail is an ordinary V-shaped gully. The way in is a steep narrow throat; behind it the floor is flat and wide. MacDonalds hid cattle up there, their own and stolen.
On 13 February 1692 government soldiers billeted on the MacDonalds of Glencoe turned on the households that had been feeding and housing them. The clan had missed the deadline for swearing allegiance to William and Mary; others had missed it too, and Glencoe was picked for its clan politics and its name for lawlessness. Thirty-eight died, by the count the National Trust for Scotland gives.
The glen has belonged to the Trust since 1935, bought with money raised by the Scottish Mountaineering Club, almost all of it from its chairman Percy Unna, who set conditions about keeping the land wild. The Trust's own visitor centre was later held to breach them and closed. The replacement stands further west, on ground the purchase never covered.
The Trust's page for the glen names six films in one line and has nothing else on filming. Three are on this site.
At the head of the valley is Allt-na-reigh, where Hamish MacInnes worked out his mountain rescue stretcher and which Jimmy Savile later owned. In June 2024 the owners got permission to demolish it and build a house called Hamish House. In February 2025 the extension burned.