C1203 (Highland)

This article is about the Class III road numbered C1203 maintained by Highland Council.
For other roads numbered C1203, see C1203.

Unlike most C roads, the C1203 in Ballachulish can hardly be described as linear. In fact, it forms a triangular shape around the village, with two spurs connecting to the A82, or perhaps it is two parallel loops off the A82. However you think about it, all of the C1203 was formerly numbered as the A82, and indeed the A828 at some point in time.

Starting at the east end of the village, the C1203 curves away from the A82 bypass by the famous Arch. After about 100m it splits by the pub, the main route continuing west along Albert Road for about half a mile, before curving back to meet the A82 once more. This road was started in c1937, and finally completed in 1951 when the Albert Road Bridge was built, it became the A828 on completion, and for a couple of years in the late 1970s it was the A82 between the opening of the Ballachulish Bridge in 1975 and the completion of the village bypass a few years later.

The other part of the C1203 forks left by the pub, and heads south west along Loanfern, climbing up past the park and the curving round over the original Brig O Laroch before dropping back down the hill along West Laroch. At the bottom, it meets a T junction with the 1951 road, turns right and very quickly reaches Albert Road close to the A82 junction. This loop into the village was originally classified as the A82 in 1922, but with the completion of the A829 route around Loch Leven, via Kinlochleven, the A82 was re-routed in 1936. This saw the A828 extended through Ballachulish, and it followed this loop until 1951 when Albert Road (above) was completed.