The village of Balmacara sits below the slopes of Sgurr Mor and Auchtertyre Hill, on the Balmacara Estate in Lochalsh. The settlement at the square was once the heart of the estate and on the drovers' route to the markets at Crieff and Falkirk. Indeed until the 1970s, the main road from Kyle of Lochalsh to Dornie and the south was through Balmacara Square. There was a farm, including a steading which dates from the 1770s and originally housed stables and a cart shed. A mill and an ice house also formed part of the home farm of the estate. Balmacara Estate is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, which recently restored a number of the buildings round the mill pond in the Square