It is one of the most famous of all stories regarding the Loch Ness Monster, the tale of a man who almost ran his motorcycle into a large creature on a moonlit winter night. A newspaper account of the time summarized the events of that night (The Scotsman 6th January 1934).
ONE of the most remarkable developments in the Loch Ness mystery occurred early yesterday morning, when an animal presumed to be the monster was seen on land by Mr. Arthur Grant, a veterinary student in Edinburgh, son of Mr. James Grant, the proprietor of Polmaily, Glenurquhart. He was motor cycling to his home in the glen at 1.30 yesterday morning, when he observed a huge object on the roadway near Abriachan. As he almost struck it, the creature leaped across the road and dashed into the loch.
... "It was," said Mr. Grant, "a bright moonlight night after rain had fallen. When almost forty yards away under the shadow of the hills, a short distance from the part of the reconstructed Glasgow-Inverness road near Abriachan, I observed what appeared to be a large black object on the opposite side of the road. I was almost on it when it turned what I thought was a small head on a long neck, and the creature, apparently taking fright, made two great bounds across the road and plunged into the loch.
"I had a splendid view of the object; in fact, I almost struck it with my motor cycle. It had a long neck with an eel-like head and large oval-shaped eyes, just on the top of the small head. The body was very hefty, and I distinctly saw two front flippers. There were other two flippers, which seemed to be webbed behind, and there was a tail, which I estimate would be from five to six feet long. The curious thing about the tail was that it did not, so far as I could see, come to a point, but was rounded off. The total length of the animal would be from 15 to 20 feet.
"Knowing something about natural history, I can say that I have never seen anything in my life like the animal I saw. It looked like a hybrid. I jumped off my cycle," said Mr. Grant, "but the animal with great speed had rushed into the loch, splashing the surface violently and making away."
Mr. Grant's story created great interest along Loch Ness side, where there were many motorists moving about in the hope of seeing the monster.
When I was writing my book on land sightings, I looked into where the incident took place as it was normally stated as near the the village of Abriachan. It turned out it was bit further south near Brachla (sometimes written as Brackla) in the area now occupied by the Clansman Hotel. By coincidence, there is a statue of a large monster near there and a stream runs past it down to the beach below.
My speculation was that a stream could be a plausible spot for such a creature to come ashore, but of course, the habits of such creatures are not exactly well documented. At that time, a group of people from Edinburgh led by Mr. A. F. Hay, a fellow of the Zoological Society of Scotland, were already there on a nine day investigation and made their way to examine the site of the encounter. Their investigation with Grant was subsequently reported in the same newspaper on the 22nd January, from which I quote:
We spent the next two days in his company, a part of the time in going over the ground and foreshore where he had seen it, measuring up spoor and hunting for clues as to the identity of the beast ...
We checked the tracks at the point where the creature had gone down the steep bank into the loch and confirmed the fact that there was no “body drag" though without doubt something large had gone down there. The marks of the feet or flippers – as they were scrapes or “skids” in the soft earth, there was no telling the nature of them – were roughly five feet apart ...
Some seventy yards further up the beach from this point (near Abriachan) what appeared to be a set of foot or flipper prints in the shingle measuring some 24 inches long from toe to heel, 38 inches cross from right toe to left, and 30 inches from heel to heel. Nearby was a large crushed down area in the bracken as if an over-sized cow had lain there, though no farm beast could have reached that spot.
When I was up at the loch a week or so ago to pick up some game cameras, I had time to drive over to the area of the Clansman Hotel and have a look from the road down to the loch. I parked the car and crossed what was a busy road to the layby opposite the Loch Ness Lodges where the earthen bank slopes quickly down. Once down at beach level I surveyed the scene. The photo below is looking northwards.
I looked back at the slope I had scrambled down and I could see the opportunity those men 90 years ago had to examine slide tracks in the softer earth. Quite how it looked in January 1934 is not certain though January implies a minimum of vegetation. Furthermore, the path from road to loch was not obstructed by any walls both then and now.
Looking at the beach, it was evident that beyond the embankment, the large shingle provided no opportunity to provide further tracks (photo below). This tallied with Mr. Hay saying nothing more about tracks immediately after the slide down the embankment.
However, Hay mentioned some tracks being impressed in the shingle "some seventy yards further up the beach" towards Abriachan (i.e. northwards). I walked roughly that distance and came to a smaller area where the shingle was smaller and well capable of leaving a good impression from something like a large animal's forelimbs. I pressed my own considerably lighter feet into this smaller shingle and left a footprint with no problem.
The waters in the foreground of the first photograph below is a stream flowing down from the Clansman Hotel. So the testimony of the gentlemen from 1934 seemed to agree well with what I was observing today. It was stated at the time that a plaster cast of a track was made and sent off for examination. This spoor was not the four toed track of Marmaduke Wetherell, but a three toed one. No further mention is made of this item in any newspaper, magazine or book I have consulted. I do not even know if it could have survived to this day, which is all a great pity.
Readers will also notice in the background of the photograph some gorse bushes. Mr. Hay had further stated that "nearby was a large crushed down area in the bracken" commensurate with a large animal laying down there. Note "bracken" is more usually applicable to fern leaves, but those would have died back to the ground by January and so the plentiful gorse around the loch was more likely in mind.
To the right of the gorse bushes you can see a pile of large, broken rocks. I wondered if these were blast fragments associated with the road building that had been going on nearby over the 1930s. Perhaps they were, though just beyond them was the expanded pier that had been built for the Jacobite Cruises some years back. I am not certain how much rock debris that produced and so cannot exclude that explanation.
Mr. Hay did not give an indication of which direction those tracks were pointing. Did they indicate the creature was going to or coming from the loch? That is not certain and so one possible scenario is that the creature on that moonlit night came ashore on that lighter shingle where I stood and clambered up the stream and then onto the road. As it proceeded to do whatever Nessies do on land, eventually it moved about seventy yards further south before Arthur Grant approached on his motorcycle.
At the moment of closest encounter it crossed back towards the safety of the loch down the embankment and across the rougher shingle into the loch. An ordnance survey map from 1904 shows this to be a quieter place in those days. The likely spot was near Stevenson Cottage, one of the small number of houses represented by black rectangles on the OS map. It is not clear which of those buildings survive to this day as part of the Loch Ness Lodge or Clansman Hotel complex.
The stream previously mentioned is named as "Allt Coire Shalachaidh" which has an uncertain translation from the Gaelic but one suggestion is that it means "Stream of the corrie of (the) willow place". Now having said all this, there is uncertainty due to the fact that Grant's estimate of the location is expressed in miles and an error of say plus or minus 5% puts us out by 80 metres either side. So, we can hold these observations lightly pending any further information coming to light.
Of course, one can dismiss the entire episode out of hand by accusing Grant of fabrication for whatever motives. I covered such objections in my land sightings book, but I quote what Constance Whyte said about Grant in her book "More than a Legend":
Memory of the event is still vivid in Mr. Grant's mind, though for many years he has preferred to say nothing about it on account of the treatment, amounting to persecution, to which he was subject at the time.
I might be going out on a limb here, but I would say that hoaxers prefer not to suffer for their sins and much rather confess them, do their penance and move on in life. Well, unless you're a glutton for punishment.
Comments can be made at the Loch Ness Mystery Blog Facebook group.
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
