Lochnagar, a finely-shaped mountain of Braemar district, SW Aberdeenshire, 6⁵/8 miles SE of Castletown and 9¾ SW of Ballater as the crow flies, but 10½ and 13 to walk. One of the frontier Grampians, it flanks the W side of the upper part of Glenmuick, and blocks the heads of Glengelder and Glengarrawalt; and it rises so steeply and fitfully as to be scaleable on foot only with extreme fatigue, yet can be conveniently ascended on Highland ponies, as by the Queen and Prince Albert on 16 Sept. 1848. Far up its north-eastern side lies triangular Lochnagar or the `Lake of the Hare' (2½ x 2 furl.; 2575 feet), a gloomy tarn, overhung by precipices 1200 feet high; and it is gashed on other sides and on its shoulders by frightful corries. Some of its higher hollows retain deep snow-drifts throughout the summer months; and the whole of it was white with snow all day on 4 June 1880. The predominant rock is granite, and topazes, beryls, and rock crystals are found. Rising to an altitude of 3786 feet above sea-level, Lochnagar commands, from its summit a very extensive and most magnificent view. Lord Byron pronounced it `the most sublime and picturesque of the Caledonian Alps,' and celebrated it, as `dark Lochnagar,' in one of his best known and most beautiful minor poems.—Ord. Sur., sh. 65, 1870.

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)