Tomatin Travel Guide - Scotland

Situated in the heart of Highland country, Tomatin is a village blessed with dramatic scenery all around. The River Findhorn flows nearby and Loch Moy is only two miles from here. The village boasts its own distillery, which is open to visitors. This area, in February 1746, bore witness to the Rout of Moy. The story goes that the lady of Moy who had scorned the ambivalence of her husband, the Macintosh, hid the Young Pretender, who later proclaimed that the Macintosh should regard himself as his wife's prisoner. Learning that the governor of Inverness, Lord Loudoun was advancing with around 1500 men, she sent the blacksmith and six men into the night to explore.

On hearing the advancement of the enemy, the blacksmith and his men scarpered, sounding a warning to the rallied clans who shouted eery war cries into the night along with the terrifying sounds of the bagpipes. Lord Loudoun and his men were startled and convinced that they had stumbled into the main Jacobite army, fled from the area. This event bears remarkable resemblance to a similar occasion at Spean Bridge the previous year.