ONE-HUNDRED YEARS AGO Saturday July 17, 1920

Royal visits of other days – Queen Victoria at Campbeltown

The visit this week to the Clyde of King George

and Queen Mary recalls the historic occasion when Queen Victoria spent a night on board ship in Campbeltown Loch.

The story of that visit has been preserved in Cuthbert Bede’s ‘Argyll’s Highlands’, a most interesting volume now out of print.

Queen Victoria’s visit to Campbeltown, or rather Campbeltown Harbour, was on Saturday, September 17, 1847 on her way from her then Highland home at Ardverikie.

It was the first royal visit paid to old Ceann Loch since the days of the old Scottish kings.

The royal squadron arrived at Campbeltown on the Saturday afternoon. Her majesty had gone to Ardverikie, near Fort William, that year through the Crinan Canal, and returned by the same route.

On the day when she came to Campbeltown the portion of the squadron that accompanied her to Crinan, as soon as she landed there to go on board the track-boat, set off round the Mull of Kintyre and so reached Campbeltown from the south.

The other ships were waiting at Ardrishaig, having gone there some days previously. It so happened that the two divisions of the squadron met just as they were entering the harbour, and it is said that it was Her Majesty who first descried the vessels that rounded the Mull as she sailed down Kilbrannan Sound.

Campbeltown was splendidly illuminated for the occasion, and bonfires blazed on quays and on the surrounding hills. The whole population was abroad, and in a state of highest excitement and delight.

Her majesty frequently showed herself upon deck, so did also the Prince Consort, until the shadows of night began to fall, so that the Campbeltown people had a good opportunity of seeing her and she could view our beautiful harbour and town to great advantage.