In 1860 and 1861 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made four 'Great Expeditions' in the Highlands, where they would travel incognito with a small retinue, staying at inns.This watercolour shows an inn they stayed at during the third 'Great Expedition', on 8 October 1861. According to her journal, the Queen did not like her lodgings very much, especially as there was 'hardly anything to eat." She did enjoy the trip overall though.

This watercolour was one of a series commissioned by Victoria after Albert's death (14 December 1861) as mementoes of the 'Great Expeditions' they went on (see also RCINs 919681-919685, 919655, 919674 and 919686). Richard Principal Leitch was the son of the royal watercolour tutor William Leighton Leitch, who taught Queen Victoria, her daughters and her daughter-in-law Princess (later Queen) Alexandra for almost twenty years. 

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album IX. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert compiled nine View Albums during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.