The Black Colonel, John Farquharson, was forced to hide in this very narrow river gorge to escape the government troops, after the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. The actual overhang that was the Colonel’s refuge has collapsed in recent years.

later laird, he became a hunted man, but nevertheless spent much time in his own castle of Inverey, and fought at the battles of Bothwell Bridge and Killiecrankie. In 1689, he burned the 67-year-old Braemar Castle to prevent it falling into government hands. Cornered on one occasion by redcoats in the Pass of Ballater, he ensured his own immortality by escaping on horseback up the near precipitous north side of the defile. Eventually a redcoat ambush was laid for him at Inverey, but forewarned, he escaped, and watched his castle burning. He thereafter took refuge in the ‘Colonel’s Bed’, below a rock overhang in a gorge in the River Ey, where his light o’ love, Annie Ban (Fair Haired Annie), brought him food. Before he died, about 1698, he instructed that he was to be buried at Inverey, beside his Annie Ban, but for some reason he was instead buried at Braemar. The next morning, his coffin was found on the ground beside his grave, and was re-buried. On the third occasion this happened, the coffin was taken to Inverey for re-burial, and was heard of no more.