A council says it is powerless to prevent the demolition of a building that features in one of the most famous journeys ever portrayed in Scottish literature.

Members of Highland Council's south area planning applications committee lamented that they could not reject plans to replace the school and school house at Camusnacroise, Kingairloch with a modern building, because it had not been listed by Historic Scotland.

Robert Louis Stevenson almost certainly visited it researching "Kidnapped" which was published in 1886 telling the story of David Balfour Alan Breck Stewart. It is now features on a long distance walking route the Stevenson Way following in their footsteps.

It crosses the Sound of Mull on to the Morvern Peninsula , and then up the western side of Loch Linnhe where David Balfour met a catechist in the book: "Mr. Henderland after expressing his delight in my company.....proposed that I should make a short stage, and lie the night in his house a little beyond Kingairloch."

The building at that time was a manse. It is thought to have been constructed as early as 1770. Now the absentee owner of the Kingairloch Estate wants a new building to match the other cottages if offers for holiday lets.

Planning officials told councillors "Historic Scotland has confirmed that despite the historic nature of the Old Schoolhouse and its possible literary associations with Robert Louis Stevenson, the fabric of the building is insufficient to meet the criteria for listing."

Fort William and Ardnamurchan councillor Thomas MacLennan said "I do feel completely and utterly toothless on this one." He said he would love to find a way, but there didn't seem to be a way within the planning process of saving this building.

Another local independent councillor Andrew Baxter said "Our hands are tied and there is nothing we can do legally to prevent its demolition."

Roddy Balfour said he remembered when the area had an indigenous Gaelic speaking community 30 or 40 years ago.

The estate has disputed the schoolhouse was the building referred to in the novel, but respected local historian Iain Thornber, who went to primary school in the building, is in no doubt.

"It is very clear from Kidnapped that while David Balfour was a fictional character R L Stevenson in his book, had him stay at the old manse. It is also well known locally that Stevenson stayed there while walking and researching the book. To say that whole part of the history of the building is fictional is pure rubbish."

He said that everyone who now lived locally worked for the estate.

Angela Yeoman, the Somerset-based owner of the Kaingairloch Estate said in the autumn that the new cottage would not be significantly different to the existing building "It would be much the same. We wouldn't even change the name. But it would be energy efficient and up to the standard of the other properties we let out."