AN HOUR’S drive from Glasgow, on the banks of Scotland’s misty Loch Fyne, the Cairndow Stagecoach Inn makes an unlikely home for poets. At the tartan-carpeted bar, locals gather for themed dances, complete with fog machines and pulsing laser lights. It’s easy to miss a small frame on the wall, which carries a quote from the poet John Keats, who spent a weary night at the roadside stop-off in 1818.

In a letter to his younger brother Tom, Keats wrote of the stay: “We were up at 4 this morning and have walked to breakfast 15...