Copper beeches shade the green at the centre of Strontian, with Loch Sunart just below. In 1790 the chemist Adair Crawford found something new in a mineral from the lead mines in the hills above; the new substance was named after Strontian, and in 1808 Humphry Davy isolated the element, strontium. Just north, Ariundle Oakwood is a surviving scrap of the Atlantic oakwoods that once lined Europe’s west coast, with riverside trails and more than 270 kinds of lichen. When the landowner refused the Free Church a site in the 1840s, the congregation had a floating church towed from the Clyde and moored it in the loch. Coming from the A82, you cross Loch Linnhe on the Corran Ferry.
