Issue No.

36 April 2014

In Glen Lyon - a postcard by Scott Rankin

Perthshire in Postcards

The Friends’ latest publication, ‘A Postcard from Perthshire’ is reviewed on page 5

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Notes from our Chairman Writing the Chairman’s notes for the Friends’ Newsletter is very redo-lent of some other facets of life. That is to say, you complete a piece for a publication, send it off and breathe a sigh of relief thinking that's that for a while. Then, before you can blink, a message arrives asking for text for the next one! Thus the six months or so since last October have gone in a flash. Mind you, a great deal has happened during that period which I will try to outline for members. In relation to our talks, as many of you will know, we have had three ex-tremely interesting speakers. In late October Bernard Byrom returned to de-liver his history of the Highland Railway from Perth to Inverness. As many of the audience had travelled along it, their interest was very great and Ber-nard did not disappoint. Indeed, the illustrations were wonderful, showing everything from the types of locomotives used over decades to the depth of the winter snows they had to cope with. This was followed in November by Steve Connelly, our Archivist, who gave us a comprehensive overview of the resources available in the Archive. It was very kind of him to agree to exchange slots with Rhoda Fothergill, who had been scheduled to speak then on the glass industry of Perth, but who felt she needed a little more time to put together her illustrative material. As I said in my vote of thanks, if anyone had wanted an encyclopaedic tour of the Archive, Steve did that for us. Most recently, in February, Rhoda Fothergill gave her talk on the glass in-dustry and again fascinated everyone present. It was focused on three of the historic firms which have operated in Perth in the past but the level of detail was amazing, and we all learned a great deal about how glass was used in a multitude of different ways compared to the present day. It was well worth waiting to allow Rhoda to source all the illustrations she wanted to use. Apart from that, it was with great pleasure that I wrote to Rhoda in early January to congratulate her on behalf of the Friends following her award of the BEM in the Queen's New Year's Honours List. As I said in that letter, we all hope that the interest Rhoda has sparked in the history of Perth and its environs will encourage more people to become interested in this subject and, perhaps, give rise to another historian of her calibre. In contrast to that letter, and on a very sad note, I also wrote a letter of con-dolence to Mrs Colin Stewart of Blairgowrie, the sister of our late Honorary

President and lighthouse expert, former Provost Bob Scott. Bob served as a member of Perth & Kinross District Council, Tayside Regional Council and the current unitary Perth & Kinross Council. He served as Provost from 2003 to 2007 when he retired from local government. My own experience of Bob, as a fellow local councillor, very quickly showed me that no matter what topic was under discussion Bob would approach it in a balanced, logical and even-handed way. This made him an ideal person to be a Provost and his term of office was exemplary. Bob died in October after a long illness and, as I am sure many of you feel, this was a tragic loss of a kind and considerate man who should have had the pleasure of attending our talks, and on occasion giving them, for many years to come. Trying to remain upbeat, I am very pleased to say that at our Committee meeting on 28th November 2013, our Treasurer Jim Ferguson proposed that the Committee grant a life membership to David Wilson, the editor of our Newsletter. This was agreed unanimously and I would like to express my thanks to David for all the work he has carried out for us in a totally volun-tary capacity, thus ensuring the continuity and quality of this publication. Again looking to the future, we have three more talks this session, each of which promises to be very interesting. They range from the story of the transportation of convicts to Australia through the garden cemetery move-ment in Perthshire and culminate with a day in the life of the Registrar. The third of these, on 15th May, coincides with our Annual General Meeting and while this seems some time away, just like the matter of writing these notes, it will arrive in a jiffy. I would therefore ask all members to consider whether they might wish to become members of our Committee and thus help to en-sure that the valuable contribution the Friends make to the operation of our Archive continues. As usual, anyone wishing to stand as a member of the Committee should submit a nomination form by the specified date when they receive their AGM notice. Finally, in this edition, I wish to record my thanks to our new Assistant Archivist, Christine Wood, who has taken on the role which her predecessor Jan Merchant held for many years. In relation to the Friends this includes advising members on how they can help, guiding them in so doing and at-tending all our Committee meetings. This is on a purely voluntary basis and I and my colleagues greatly appreciate this kindness and professionalism. Alan Grant

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News from the Archive I am pleased to announce that Christine Wood has been appointed as Assistant Ar-chivist in succession to Jan Merchant. Many of you will know Christine from the search room and from her stint as treasurer. She will serve on the Friends’ committee and brings valuable experience of working with the volunteers. Christine’s old job of Archives Assistant has been filled by Claire Devine, known to many users of the A K Bell Lending Department. Claire is currently on maternity leave after the very recent arrival of Tom, but we are fortunate to have the services of another experi-enced member of staff, Lorna Westwater, until Claire returns to work. I am sure you will all join me in welcoming them all to their new roles. As I write this, the refurbishment of the first floor of the A K Bell Library has been completed as the home of Local & Family History (formerly Local Studies) and Learning & Information (formerly Reference). It is looking very good and public re-action is generally favourable. The rearrangement of the first floor means that Local & Family History is now immediately adjacent to the Archive search room. It is go-ing to leave the Archive search room looking a little shabby chic in comparison. Steve Connelly

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A Postcard from Perthshire

Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive have recently published

another little book by one of our members, David Robertson. On this oc-

casion he has joined forces with his brother Ian Robertson to produce A

Postcard From Perthshire. This booklet is profusely illustrated by old

postcard pictures from the early 1900s, many of them showing scenes which

have long since disappeared or have been much changed.

Picture postcards came to prominence around 1900, and they became for a

decade or more the main medium of day-to-day communication for much of

the population. A national craze developed for collecting picture postcards,

which was met by publishers producing designs in large numbers. Some of

their names will be familiar such as Valentine’s of Dundee, the Aberdeen

This ‘Fair City’ card from 1905 shows one of the new electric trams standing outside the former High St. Post Office building

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photographer George Washington

Wilson and, most famous of all,

Raphael Tuck & Sons.

The book examines in particular

the production of ‘view cards’ to

meet the demands of visitors to

Perthshire before the First World

War. It describes how two local

firms – William Culross in Coupar

Angus and David Wood in Perth -

became leading publishers of

County views. Both have sadly gone

out of business in recent years, but

some of their early postcards are

included amongst the numerous

examples illustrated in the book,

many of them in colour.

The second part of the book tells

the stories behind a wide selection

of scenes from across Perthshire as

they appeared on the postcards of

a hundred years ago.

There are illustrations of the town

centres of places like Aberfeldy, Dundee, Dunkeld and Coupar Angus—often

so quiet before the motor car appeared!— and the old hotels at Lochearn-

head and Tummel Bridge . Other locations described in detail are the Dun-

ning monument to the burning of a witch, the once-famous health spa of Pit-

keathly , and the cottage near Pitlochry which was said—as were several oth-

ers— to be the centre of Scotland.

Amongst the scenes featured are several with a transport theme. The story is

briefly told of the trams in Perth and the steamers on Loch Tay, both long

High St., Dunkeld at the turn of the century, with children playing in the roadway! An ‘Art Card’ published by Raphael Tuck & Sons in their acclaimed ‘Oilette’ series

Pictures Courtesy of the Authors except for ‘Devil’s Elbow’ postcard 6

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gone. Also illustrated are the old road and rail bridges over the Tummel at

Ballinluig, the old ferry and new bridge across the Tay at Kinclaven, and the

much-feared Devil’s Elbow which faced motorists heading north out of

Perthshire to Braemar and Deeside.

The booklet shows conclusively that the ephemeral postcard of a hundred

years ago is now a valuable historical document, showing something of the

way the County looked before the massive changes of the twentieth century.

Both the A K Bell Library and the Perth Museum & Art Gallery have good

collections of old postcards, and the Museum in particular has a collection of

more than a thousand glass plate negatives of County views used by Woods

of Perth for their postcard production.

David Wilson

Copies of “A Postcard from Perthshire” can be purchased for

£6.00 from the Friends at the A K Bell Library, and also from

various bookshops and heritage and visitor centres around the

County. The authors can be contacted by telephone on 01529

497354 or by e-mail to dmrbraceby@hotmail.com.

Previous booklets by David Robertson, also available from the Friends, are

“A Perthshire Artist: Andrew Scott Rankin 1868-1942” and “Lost Gardens of

Perthshire”. He is currently preparing a further volume on more lost gar-

dens which is expected to be published by the Friends during 2014.

An early motorist’s nightmare – the ‘Devil’s Elbow’’ on the 2,200 foot high Cairnwell pass between Spittal of Glenshee and Braemar. Note the distressed surface of the road which at one point has a 1 in 3 gradient! (Courtesy of Colin McLeod)

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More Threipland Estate Discoveries

The Threipland family of Fingask Castle and Estate in the Carse of Gowrie

deposited a large collection of family papers with Perth & Kinross Council

Archive a few years ago (about 16 metres of material and a catalogue running

to 743 pages!). These have been well documented and publicised. But a cou-

ple of years ago a large metal deed box which had been discovered in an old

building arrived at the Archive, and this was found to contain a mass of all

sorts of bits and pieces of family papers dating from c.1630 to 1970. These

amounted to four further boxes and they have now been sorted, indexed and

catalogued.

There are a great variety of subjects and the problem has been trying to inte-

grate them with the original collection, particularly when there are only a few

papers on any subject and there is no reference to this subject in the original

collection. As an example of this, there are some 38 items on the Ruthven

family and 17 on the Gowrie conspiracy. The Threiplands, who claim descent

loosely from King Robert II of Scotland, were related to the Ruthven family

by marriage through the Stepney family of Hertfordshire and Pembroke-

shire, a relative of whom married a descendant of Patrick Ruthven. There is

Fingask Castle, Carse of Gowrie

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no reference in the original collection to either of these subjects, so this repre-

sents an important addition to the history of the Threiplands.

The Threiplands were also ardent Jacobites, Sir Stuart Threipland being the

surgeon to Prince Charles in 1745. There are papers relating to the Jacobites

in the original collection and further papers have been discovered now.

Among these is an interesting group of mini watercolours, including items of

the dress worn by the Prince in 1746 when he went to Skye as Flora Mac-

donald’s ‘maidservant’. These comprise a small painted pattern of the lilac

flower print on his dress, small dabs of paint to show the colour of his brogue

lugs, garter, and even the colour of the wood of the boat he escaped in! There

is also a short length of dirty, well-handled ribbon — authentic? Who knows?

The story is documented that the Prince and Flora stayed one night at Kings-

burgh on Skye, a property owned by a kinsman of Flora’s, and next morning

the lady of the house declared that the Prince dressed in ladies clothes looked

gauche, and insisted that he once again dress in tartan. That day he continued

his flight leaving all his clothes behind him. Samples of everything were taken

and sent to the Jacobite Bishop Forbes of Orkney, who authorised the paint-

ings to be made and sent to Sir Stuart Threipland some time after the rebel-

lion. Sir Stuart had fled to France and the estate was forfeited; however, he

bought it back again after the general amnesty in 1783.

Other interesting items include a letter from a Napoleonic wars general, Briga-

dier General Sir John Murray, from Namur, France to his daughter Euphemia

in 1811, and a passport issued to him and his family by the British Ambassador

to the Netherlands on 25 June 1817, written in both French and Flemish

authorising them “to travel without hindrance on His Majesty’s Service”.

There is also a letter from “Emilie” to a French officer of the 8th Regiment de

Ligne which was found on the battlefield of Bommel in 1794, bearing no rela-

tionship to anything else—and thereby hangs a tale no doubt.

There is an agreement to rent a house in Paris for 1822-1823 in favour of Ma-

dame Murray, and two receipts for 850 francs in advance payment of rent!

Still in France, there is a French marriage certificate allowing Magnan Bernard

Pierre, Chef de Bataillon de 34 Regiment de Ligne to wed Euphemia Jamina

Murray in 1822, presumably Brigadier General John Murray’s daughter; and

the will of one Patrick Watson aboard an East India Company’s ship leaving all

his effects to Miss Euphemia Threipland—there must be a story behind this!

The Duke of Wellington apparently was in the habit of sending small swatches

of his hair to good friends and colleagues as mementos. There is a little corre-

spondence from the Duke’s office including three letters, two of which still

contain small cuttings of his hair; a third letter is missing a swatch. Another

short correspondence comprises three brief letters in manuscript from W E

Gladstone, the Prime Minister.

Coming to more modern times, Captain William Murray Threipland, who was

present at the battle of Omdurman, writes home describing his voyage up the

Nile and another letter gives a vivid description of the battle itself. He also

fought in the Boer war with the 2nd Grenadier Guards and there is a typescript

copy of his lengthy letters from the war from March to June 1900, giving a

vivid description of conditions in South Africa at this stage of the campaign.

Presumably he fought in WW1 as well, but there are no records from this pe-

riod. There is, however, an extensive correspondence from 1920 on the at-

tempt by the Government to abolish the Welsh Guards to save money by re-

ducing them to company strength and incorporating them into the Grenadier

Guards. Colonel Threipland was Colonel-in-Chief of the Welsh Guards. There

are reports of meetings and much correspondence, including letters to the Sec-

retary for War and the Welsh Secretary. Eventually he won his case and the

Regiment was saved.

These are just some of the interesting items in this latest addition to the

Threipland papers. It would seem that most of these are oddments gathered

together piecemeal and the interesting part is that so many of them are “one

offs” and bear no relationship to the vast collection already catalogued. By the

way, there are also two boxes of documents in Latin and a poem in Welsh still

awaiting cataloguing . . . any takers?

Graham Watson

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Miss Rhoda Fothergill BEM The Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive will be delighted to know that one of our members has been awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list. Miss Rhoda Fothergill is well known to us for her unstinting generosity in giving her time and energy to research-ing and delivering talks on a range of local history topics. It was entirely merited that her contribution to local history be recognised. In her teaching career she passed on her interest in local history to a new generation by involving her pupils in the production of a number of booklets. This was a practice originated during her time at Kinnoull School with the

publication of Kinnoull, Bridgend and Barnhill in 1976. Publications at Caledonian Road School regularly followed: A History of King James VI Hos-pital on the site of the earlier Carthusian monas-tery; Waterways of Perth; What’s in a Name – a survey of Perth street names; Bridges of the Tay and Caledonian Road School, Perth – a short his-tory. After retirement, if it can be called that, she pro-duced further booklets: A short history of Craigie Primary School and The Inches of Perth. Many of you will also know her as the long-serving secre-tary of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. She has always been supportive of any attempts to

spread knowledge of Perth’s fascinating history and has lent her services as a speaker to a number of local organisations besides the Friends of Perth & Kinross Council Archive, including Perth Civic Trust, Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust and Bowerswell Memorial Homes. The numbers that turn up to these talks are testament to the high regard in which she is held. She is to be found regularly in either Local Studies or Archives at the A K Bell Library and she keeps us on our toes with a number of enquiries. In re-turn, she has always been generous in sharing her knowledge and advice with both the staff and other users. A letter of congratulation and a bunch of flowers were sent to Miss Fothergill on your behalf. Steve Connelly

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Dunalastair House Most people driving along the B846 road between Tummel Bridge and Kinloch Ran-noch, with the scenery dominated by the great mass of Schiehallion, are unaware that the ruins of a once-great mansion stand hidden amongst the trees on the left of the road. It is a hugely atmospheric ruin, and well worth leaving the road for. The area is one of the ancestral lands of the Clan Donnachaidh, and one of their branches, the Robertsons of Struan, had a smaller house on this site. It was burned down after the 1745 rebellion because the then owner, Alexander Robertson of Struan, was a Jacobite supporter. The house was rebuilt, and the family lived there peacefully until the 1850s, when it was again burned down, this time apparently ac-cidentally. Unfortunately, this coincided with the eighteenth Chief of the Clan amassing large debts, and in consequence having to sell off his Struan estates. They were bought by General Sir John MacDonald of Kinloch Rannoch, who demolished the house and in 1862 built this magnificent baronial-style mansion,

designed by the famous architectural firm of Andrew Heiton & Son. It was built on the left bank of the Tummel and had the MacDonald coat-of-arms engraved on the wall on the front of the house. He named the mansion “Dunalastair” which literally means “Mount of Alexander”. Sir John died in 1866 and subsequently the mansion was purchased by Mr Hugh Tennent, the great-great-grandson of the founder of Glasgow’s Wellpark Brewery. He wished to have the MacDonald coat-of-arms cut out of the wall, but it was thought that this might damage the fabric of the building, so the gardener suggested planting a fast-growing creeper that would soon cover it. The creeper has gone, but the MacDonald coat-of-arms is still there. Mr Tennent died unmarried and childless in 1890 at the age of only twenty-seven, and the estate was next owned by Mr James Clark Bunten, a director (and chairman in 1897) of the Caledonian Railway Company. In 1899, when the railway company wished to give names to its latest and most powerful class of 4-4-0 locomotives,

Dunalastair House as it was in its heyday; servants were cheap and landowners wealthy.

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they chose the names of their directors’ country estates, beginning with their chair-man’s. The “Dunalastair” class of locomotives has gone down in railway history as one of the best of their type ever to run on British rails. When Mr Bunten died in 1901 the estate passed to the de Sales la Terriere family. During the Second World War the mansion was requisitioned by the army and was used as a school for Polish refugees who, it was alleged, managed to set fire to the dining room. After Mrs Jeannie de Sales la Terriere died in 1952 her son decided to abandon the house, which like many Victorian mansions, was massively too big for a modern family home. By the early 1960s the Perthshire Valuation Rolls were classing the house as “uninhabitable” and in the 1970s as “ruinous”. It remains in that forlorn condition today and is included on Historic Scotland’s register of ‘Buildings at Risk.’ Bernard Byrom

(photographs courtesy of the Author) 15

Robert Alexander Scott

Deputy Lieutenant and former Provost of Perth & Kinross: the late Bob Scott was unquestionably a most distinguished citizen of the Big County. But this Honorary Life member of the Friends was so much more than a leading member of the community. He was also a man of great integrity, talent, generosity and charm, and belonged to that tiny group of people who are universally both liked and re-spected. He had great energy and enthusiasm and his widespread and varied interests included history and lighthouses.

Already a keen and founding member of the Friends of Perth & Kin-ross Council Archive, Bob Scott continued to attend our meetings and to support the Friends as much as possible during his time as Perth's First Citizen and ex officio Honorary President. At the end of his term of duty as Provost in 2007, the Friends' Commit-tee unanimously decided to make him an Honorary Life member.

Perhaps because of their isolation and intrinsic beauty, lighthouses are a source of fascination for most people. Bob was no excep-tion. With his usual energy, he made the study of lighthouses a real hobby, travelling widely around the country to visit—and photo-graph—them. On Tuesday 15 October 2011 he gave a splendid presentation to the Friends about the lighthouses of Northern Scot-land. His talk and delightful pictures evoked some very happy memories of walking holidays in remote and magnificently beauti-ful places and inspired several members of his audience to visit, or revisit, some of these superb buildings and their surroundings.

When, just over six years ago, I carried out the pleasant task of pre-senting the outgoing Provost with Honorary Life membership of the Friends, I little thought that he would have so few years in which to enjoy it. ("In the midst of life ........") We offer our sincere condo-lences on his untimely death to his sister and to all the family.

Margaret Borland-Stroyan

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Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, in partnership with Northlight

Heritage, has instigated a programme of archaeological research through

community archaeology, investigating turf-built Pictish longhouses in up-

land Perthshire. 2012 saw a pilot season of community excavation focused

on the partial excavation of an early medieval ‘Pitcarmick-type’ longhouse

in Glenshee, Perth and Kinross. This ‘citizen science’ approach was funded

for a further two years in 2013 and 2014.

What are Pitcarmick-type buildings?

The distinct earthworks of these elongated longhouses, with rounded ends,

were first identified in the uplands of Glenshee and Strathardle during the

RCAHMS survey of North-East Perthshire in the late 1980s, when they were

initially thought to be medieval. The Pitcarmick ‘site-type’ takes its name

from the first investigated example, excavated in 1993-4 by Glasgow Univer-

sity. That site produced dates between the 8th and 11th centuries AD (i.e.

during the Pictish period) and confirmed that they were constructed of turf,

stone and timber and may have functioned much as the ‘black houses’ of the

Western Isles, with humans occupying one end of the building and animals

the other. This early date was clearly important, as rural Early Medieval

buildings are rarely found elsewhere in Scotland. However, there has been

no further study of the group since the 1990s excavations.

Excavations at Lair in Glenshee

This site comprises a cluster of longhouses beside two prehistoric round-

houses of probable Bronze Age or Iron Age date, and a ring-cairn of late Neo-

lithic/early Bronze Age date. The aim for 2012 was to assess the construction

of one longhouse and to confirm its date. The excavations confirmed that

the earthwork feature was a turf longhouse dating to the 7th-9th

centuries AD and, while contemporary to the Pitcarmick example, it was

The Pictish Longhouses of Glenshee

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structurally different, having been built completely of turf and without any

significant stone foundation. A well-preserved section of turf wall was un-

covered and a south-west facing pebble-paved entrance confirmed. In

addition, a large pit at the south-eastern end of the structure was discovered,

presumably part of a timber framework to support the roof. Significant finds

included flint arrowheads and a series of iron artefacts, including two knives

and two buckles. The latter were shown to be contemporary with the

building and are significant, as low-status domestic metalwork of this period

is rare—primarily because so few sites have been excavated.

The 2013 season focused on the excavation of two trenches over two south-

east to north-west orientated rectangular structures, the western of which

had been excavated in 2012. They lay end to end and were next to, and

aligned with, a prehistoric ring-cairn. Further potential archaeology visible

Photograph by kind permission of George Logan

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on the surface to the south-east of the 'Pitcarmick' buildings was also trial-

trenched, primarily to ascertain if they were actually archaeological in origin.

One of the main excavation trenches encompassed the north-western half of the

smaller south-easternmost turf longhouse, while the other was located over a

section of defining turf bank on the north-eastern side of the north-westernmost

turf longhouse. Underneath the collapsed turf walls of the smaller structure, a

large concentration of stone was revealed, possibly relating to a stone founda-

tion. At the base of both trenches a series of postholes and pits were uncovered

which may have formed part of a timber structure related to the turf long-

houses, but which could have been part of earlier prehistoric activity on the site.

A number of iron artefacts were recovered from both trenches. The smaller

trenches over features to the south-east of the turf longhouses revealed a series

of likely clearance cairns, a stone defined circular structure and a possible route-

way.

As well as a full geophysics of the area, the project has undertaken pollen analy-

sis in an attempt to put the excavation results into context and understand how

the landscape looked and was utilised during time of occupation. The results of

these and other post-excavation processes will be reported at the end of the year.

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Photograph by kind permission of Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust

James Miller Recalls Legends of Strathearn In the 1980s Mr James Miller, a resident of Comrie and district, whose memories went back to the turn of the Century, was persuaded to have them recorded for posterity. As well as delving into his own early experi-ences, he was keenly interested in the history and legends of the area. There are, of course, a number of different versions of the savage feuding between the MacNabs and Clan Neish. The events described by Mr Miller date from about 1612, which might be thought to be too long ago for genu-ine folk memories to have been transmitted by word of mouth, but tradi-tions in rural areas are often tenacious…. “As the years went past I began to take a greater interest in local history. And my usual informers were the oldest people I could find who had spent most of their life and their working days in and around the village and dis-trict. There was an old man in particular, a Mr Duncan MacMasters, who had spent most of his life in Comrie. He told me of how his mother, who used to work in the fields at the top of Loch Tay, grew flax and treated it, and later on it was spun into thread and then it was woven into bedsheets. The sheets were very thick and full of little knots, but there was no end to the wearing of them. “He also told me the story of the fight between the Clan Neish of St Fillans and the Clan MacNab of Killin. It would appear that the Clan MacNab were a very industrious lot and sent the result of their labours to Perth, where their goods were sold or bartered for other goods required by the Clan. On this occasion the woollen goods made in Killin were loaded up on carts and sent away by the following route: from Killin down by Glen Ogle to Lochearnhead, along Lochearnside to St Fillans, Comrie, Crieff and so on to Perth for disposal. “Unknown to the members of that convoy, the Clan Neish, who had their HQ at St Fillans at the foot of Loch Earn, had been watching them with a great deal of envy and decided to waylay the convoy as they returned from their shopping spree, well knowing that they would have a lot of food and money with them as they made their return journey to Killin. The Clan Neish lay in wait and trapped the unsuspecting MacNabs on the lochside just beyond St Fillans. They killed all the MacNabs and slaughtered the horses, and after removing all the provisions, goods and money, they threw the dead men and horses and wagons over the bank into the Loch and returned to their strong-hold in the Loch where there was much feasting and merriment. “The days went by and the old Chief of the MacNabs began to get rather anx-ious about the non-appearance of his convoy. So he sent some of his men to

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scout around and see what was delaying the convoy. Some of these men went down by Glen Ogle, others cut over the moors and down by Glen Breich to Lochearnside and made their way towards St Fillans. It was those men who came to the place where the massacre had taken place. After seeing the awful carnage, they returned post haste to Killin, and there they reported to the Chief all that they had seen—their dead comrades, the dead horses and the carts. “The old Chief immediately called the Clan together and held a Council of War. It was decided that a boat should be carried over to Loch Earn and manned by a number of fit men. Many others were to go down by the road and seal off all chance of escape on the south side of Loch Earn. When they were all in position a signal would be given to the men in the boat to proceed with the attack on the castle. The Clan MacNab stormed the castle in the dead of night and found they had no sentries or look-outs to worry about as the Clan Neish thought their castle was impregnable. By morning every

man, woman and child had been put to the sword after the MacNabs had taken everything they wanted. And then they tore the castle apart, stone from stone. And that is the heap of stones now known as Neish Island at St Fillans.* “It was in the early 1930s that a rather curious thing happened when a game-keeper at Woodend Cottage, a Mr Duncan MacCallum, was returning home after being out in the glen after a fox. He noticed a piece of curiously shaped

Neish Island, Loch Earn; site of the destroyed Neish stronghold

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* However, the Stewarts of Ardvorlich are reported to have occupied the castle for some time afterwards, and only later to have dismantled it.

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wood sticking out of the peat, and his curiosity was aroused. And with the aid of his stick he cleared away a good deal of peat which then revealed a number of boards attached to an upright part of an old boat which was claimed to be the boat used on the raid on Neish Castle. “Proceeding westwards on the north side of Loch Earn we come to Lochearn-head village and the crossroads, where we turn left to Balquidder and the next bit of history. Most people associate Balquhidder as the burial place of Rob Roy—but that is only one part of its history. Balquhidder was also the seat of the Clan MacLaren. And the following is a story that was related to me by Mr MacLaren, the farmer at Kirkton Farm, a direct descendant of the Clan MacLaren. “It would appear it was the privilege and custom each Sunday for the chief henchman of the Clan MacLaren to be upstanding until the Great MacLaren took his seat in the church. But there was one member of the congregation who objected to this old custom. After having suffered it for many years, the MacGregor of MacGregor of Edenchip thought he had as much right to call on the members of the congregation to be upstanding until he took his seat as did the Great MacLaren of MacLaren. This led to a clan fight in which the MacGregor of MacGregor was beaten severely. Well, this hurt the MacGre-gor’s pride, so he [MacLaren] enlisted the aid of the MacNabs. In his turn, MacGregor called on Rob Roy MacGregor to help him, and so the odds were well balanced. The clans met and gave battle in the lower haughs of Balqu-hidder, with the outcome in the favour of the MacLarens and the MacNabs. “There was great rejoicing in the MacLaren camp, but they were to get a rude awakening on the Sunday morning. The MacLaren of MacLaren had de-cided that all members of the Clan should attend a thanksgiving service at the church the next Sunday morning. The usual custom had been observed, and the Minister was about to begin his service, when a steady tramp-tramp-tramp of feet was heard, and in strode Rob Roy’s henchman and demanded that everyone be upstanding until the Great Rob Roy MacGregor took his seat. Everyone was taken by surprise and did as they were told. So from that day onward Rob Roy took the session and proceedings as long as he was able to attend church. And on his death, at his own request, was buried at Balqu-hidder Church. “Now here is another of bit of (local) history to show that the battle did actu-ally take place between the main road at Lochearnhead and Balquhidder Church. It was in the early 1930s that the old blacksmith in Balquhidder de-cided to plough up a piece of his croft below the roadway. During those operations some old claymores and targes were brought to light, and the experts said that from the condition of the finds, they seemed to tie up with the dates given for the Clan MacLaren battles.”

ARCHIVE OPENING HOURS ARE CHANGING!

From 7 April 2014, the search room of the Perth & Kinross Council Archive

at the A K Bell Library, 2-8 York Place, Perth, PH2 8EP will be closed on

Mondays, but this will be offset by extended opening on Tuesdays and

Thursdays and the introduction of Saturday morning opening. You may also

be interested to know that the newly refurbished Local and Family History

area adjacent to the Council Archive is now open and ready for visitors. The

Council Archive and Local and Family History are open as follows:

Sunday: Closed

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