The Highland Hotel, Union Road, Fort William

The Highland Hotel, located on Union Road in Fort William, is a three-storey and attic building with a raised basement, designed by architect Duncan Cameron around 1890. This wide, five-bay hotel faces north on a steeply sloping site. It features grey bullfaced sneck coursed rubble with contrasting tooled red sandstone dressings. The outer bays are advanced and gabled, linked at the first floor by a cast-iron balcony with an ornate balustrade supported by paired bracketed cast-iron columns, creating a continuous portico.

The central entrance has half-glazed doors, flanked by upper lights under a segmental headed keystoned architrave. The flanking windows are transomed and mullioned, projecting as canted bay windows that rise to the first floor in the outer bays. These are linked at the first and second floors by continuous moulded string courses. There are seven narrow windows in the central recessed bays on the first and second floors, along with five barge-boarded dormers topped with decorative wooden finials. The windows have two-pane glazing, with colored glazing in the upper lights of the principal ground floor windows. The deep gabled flanks are harled on the west side, which also features a modern single-storey extension.

The hotel has coped ridge stacks and slate roofs. Inside, the original hotel fittings remain on the ground floor, including a large entrance hall with a panelled dado and a wide staircase featuring a carved balustrade and reeded square newels, as well as a stained glass stair window. The original reception desk and office open into the hall, showcasing a panelled frontage with carved detailing. The corridors have panelled dados leading to public rooms, which have double doors that are panelled and half-glazed, with frosted decorative lettering indicating their functions, such as "Tea Room." The interior also includes original carved, panelled, and mirrored chimney pieces, along with decorative plaster ceilings.