Monument record MHG21392 - Fort Augustus, King's Inn

Work undertaken by the current owner of the King’s Inn revealed what appeared to be two original rooms below pavement level (the hyperlinked archive photograph shows the windows of these rooms) that local information believes to date to c.1705. The rooms were at some point filled-in, using material which came from the canal excavations. This building is acknowledged locally as the oldest building in the village (and in the surrounding area) and it is thought to pre-date the original fort. Kings Inn was originally built as a garrison building (presumably for officers) for the encampment on the grassed area in front of the current Lovat Hotel. The ‘garrison’ building having fallen into disrepair, it later became an Inn and was originally called the Old King’s Inn. The present owner believes that in the late 1800s/early 1900s it fell into disrepair and it may have been about then that part of the building (now known as No.1 King’s Inn Terrace) later became an annex to the hotel and serviced the needs of travellers that could not be accommodated by the hotel. The middle section (No.2) became a butchers shop and the end section (No.3), at the bottom of the hill, became ‘MacKenzies Rooms For Let’ .
This information and the photographs were provided by Mike Leary, Feb 2004.

(KC 02/04)