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The Association of British Counties

Gazetteer of
British Place Names

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Perthshire, Scotland

Perthshire is an inland county in central Scotland. Perthshire is a county of spectacle, in its glens and moors and its broad lowland valleys. It stands across the division between the Highlands and the Lowlands.

Type: Historic County
Lat, Long: 56.633087,-3.842145
Grid Reference: NN870505
Country: Scotland
 Explore Perthshire on Wikishire

The whole north of Perthshire is taken up with the Grampian Mountains, including the mountain towns of Pitlochry on the upper Tay (famed for salmon fishing), Blair Atholl and the Forest of Atholl and Crianlarich. Blair Castle, at Blair Atholl, is the last castle in the British Isles to have been besieged, this having taken place in 1746 during the last Jacobite Rebellion. There are Neolithic standing stones near Pitlochry. There are grand and beauteous lochs slicing through the landscape, including Loch Ericht and Loch Rannoch. Dunkeld Cathedral stands on the north bank of the River Tay in the small town of Dunkeld. Built in square-stone style of predominantly grey sandstone, the cathedral proper was begun in 1260 and completed in 1501.

Dunkeld-Dunkeld Cathedral Exterior
Dunkeld Cathedral

The Rivers Dochart and Lochay join several burns in feeding the great Loch Tay, from which the River Tay emerges at Kenmore. Killin is a village standing at the western head of Loch Tay, magnificently sited around the scenic Falls of Dochart. The Falls of Lochay are a series of fine waterfalls on the River Lochay close to Killin. Ben Lawers (3,983 feet), the county top, lies north of Loch Tay.

Falls of Dochart, Killin 26
Falls of Dochart at Killin

In the north-west, the Moor of Rannoch on the borders of Argyllshire is a 50-square-mile expanse of boggy moorland.

Rannoch Moor (6631372297)
Rannoch Moor

South of the Grampians is Strathearn, a gentler land of farms and modest towns. The River Earn flows east from Loch Earn at St Fillans through the towns of Comrie, Crieff and Bridge of Earn, falling into the River Tay near Abernethy. Drummond Castle, near Creiff, comprises a tower house built in the late-15th century and a 17th-century mansion, with stunning terraced gardens from the 1630s.

Perth and Kinross Drummond Castle 5
Drummond castle

In the east of the county, shared with Angus, lies the broad valley of Strathmore. The valley is approximately 50 miles long and 10 miles wide, running from north-east to south-west between the Grampian Mountains mountains and the Sidlaw Hills. Blairgowrie and Rattray is a twin burgh, known locally as "Blair", lying on the north side of Strathmore at the foot of the Grampian Mountains. The town's centrepiece is the Wellmeadow, a grassy triangle in the middle of town which hosts regular markets and outdoor entertainment. The village of Meigle, close to the border with Angus, has a museum with more than thirty Pictish Stones, many of them superbly carved. The collection is one of the finest of its type in Europe. The small town of Coupar Angus, hard by the border with Angus, is known as the "Queen of Strathmore", which is reflected in the fine architecture in the town.

Meigle Museum
The Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum

The City of Perth, the Dark Age capital of Scotland, is on the River Tay where it broadens before becoming the Firth. There has been a settlement at Perth since prehistoric times, on a natural mound above the flood plain of the Tay, where the river could be crossed at low tide. Across the Tay is Scone Palace, the family home of the Earls of Mansfield and the ancient crowning place of Scottish kings on the stone of Scone.

Perth and Kinross Scone Palace Stone Replica 1
Scone Palace, with replica of Stone of Scone

Downriver from Perth, the Firth of Tay becomes a broad arm of the sea and divides the county from Fife. North of the Firth of Tay, the Sidlaw Hills are a range of hills of volcanic origin which extend from Perth eastwards into Angus. Dunsinane Hill has the remains of two hill forts and is believed to the site of the battle between Malcolm Canmore and Macbeth in 1054.

Dunsinane Hill
Dunsinane Hill

The Trossachs are a famed woodland glen in the south-west of Perthshire. The glen itself lies between Ben A'an and Ben Venue, though the name has come to be used for the wider area of wooded glens and braes with quiet lochs, lying to the east of Ben Lomond. The area is now part of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, and is popular with walkers and cyclists. Close to the southern border with Stirlingshire, Flanders Moss is the largest raised bog in Europe to remain in a predominantly near-natural state.

Bridge On The Flanders Moss - panoramio
Flanders Moss

The small town of Dunblane lies close to the Stirlingshire border. Dunblane Cathedral is notable for its late-mediæval choir stalls and its organ. A memorial to the 17 victims of the Dunblane Massacre of 1996 stands in the local cemetery and a cenotaph in the cathedral. Doune Castle near Dunblane was built in the 14th century and was a royal palace.

Scotland-2016-Aerial-Doune Castle (and Castle keeper's cottage)
Doune castle

The Roman occupation of the area was unsuccessful and brief but they left several forts including those at Bochastle, Dalginross, Bertha, and Fendoch, as well as a legionary fortress at Inchtuthil. When the Romans withdrew, the Picts established a capital first at Abernethy and then at Forteviot. Abernethy was the centre of the Celtic church after the conversion of the natives by St Ninian, Palladius and the other missionaries of the 5th and 6th centuries. The seat of Pictish government was removed to Scone in the 8th century. During the 9th century the Pictish kingdom was absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots. In the 9th century Dunkeld became the scene of monastic activity. In 1054, in events made famous by Shakespeare, King Macbeth was defeated at Dunsinane by Siward, Earl of Northumberland, who had invaded Scotland in the interest of his kinsman, Malcolm, King Duncan's son. Three years later, Malcolm took the throne as Malcolm III.

Roman Fortress Inchtuthil - geograph.org.uk - 662961
The Roman fortress at Inchtuthil, by the Tay to the north of Perth

Perthshire became a sheriffdom around 1164. Perth became the capital of Scotland from the 12th century until 1452. King Edward I of England came to Perthshire and removed of the Coronation Stone from Scone to Westminster in 1296. The shire has long been a battleground: Robert the Bruce's defeat at Methven in 1306, his son' defeat at Dupplin Moor in 1332, Dundee's brief victory at Killiecrankie in 1689 and the indecisive contest at Sheriffmuir in the rebellion of 1715. In quieter days, Perthshire settled into prosperity, Perth becoming a centre for modest industry and academia. The Victorian era and the coming the new roads and railways brought Perthshire to the attention of visitors and new mountain centres opened, and still prosper, in the shire's wilder places.