Fort Augustus, vil., on the Caledonian Canal, and at the head of Loch Ness, Inverness-shire, 31½ miles NW. of Fort William and 32½ miles SE. of Inverness, pop. 530; P.O., T.O. The fort, built after the rebellion of 1715, was occupied by a garrison until 1857; in 1876-1880 it was transformed, by extensive alterations, into St Benedict's Monastery (raised to the dignity of an abbey, 1882), with college, hospitium, scriptorium, and church. The college is designed to provide a liberal education for the sons of the Catholic nobility and gentry.

(John Bartholomew, Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887))