|
Pitlochry
Historic Trail
Double click on
any on the images below to enlarge!
The trail was set up as part of the Pitlochry
and District Tourism Management Programme with the assistance of
Scottish Enterprise Tayside and the help of Sylvia Robertson and
Colin Liddell in 1997. The full detailed Trail leaflet can be
obtained from the Tourist Information Centre in Atholl Road.
The Pitlochry Town Trail offers a short
walk of just over 2 miles (3.2Km), 45 mins to 1.5hrs, exploring
the Victorian resort of Pitlochry and the neighbouring hamlet of
Moulin. Along the trail you will find a number of descriptive
plaques which will provide you with detailed information at each
location.
 We
start the trail at Sunnybrae Cottage, (Map Grid Ref A3)
Pitlochry’s oldest building dating back over 200 years to the
days when Pitlochry consisted of three small hamlets. Once a
public house and the site of a tragic accident which led to the
death of John Stewart of Bonskeid. Now in the care of Historic
Scotland, who are currently conducting a thorough archaeological
investigation, before deciding exactly the form the cottage will
be presented to the public.
Archeologists have found 6 or 7 different
thatches under the roof dating from different periods. The roof
is a rare example of an old Highland cruck-framed roof with a
hanging lumb in the kitchen area. It is anticipated that it will
be another 2 years before it will be open to the public.
Information is posted around the cottage so you can see what is
going on.
 Pitlochry’s
original Post Office was in the Lane opposite West Moulin
Road where Wilsons of Pitlochry, the manufacturers of leather
and horn goods is now situated. If you look carefully you will
see in the wall the two posting slots visible in the wall
between the shop and Atholl Road.
As you walk up West Moulin Road towards Moulin
you will see Ben-y-Vrackie at 8 40m
(2757ft) on the skyline dominating Pitlochry. Its name comes
from the days the mountain side was covered in bolders of white
quartz, hence the mountain was ‘Ben Vrackie’ in Gaelic ‘speckled
mountain’. If you should walk to the summit you will find one
large boulder still remaining there beside the path. The quartz
was removed during the 19th century for building. The mountain
itself is the remains of an isolated volcano, its crater is
approximately half a mile in diameter.
At the top of the trail you will enter the
ancient hamlet of Moulin, arguably the most important
 settlement
of the Upper Tay valley, for some 2,000 years, here long before
the modern Pitlochry. Today Moulin is dominated by the Moulin
Hotel, a former coaching inn established in the 1600s.
 Moulin
has the oldest Kirk in the area, it is unclear when exactly the
first building was erected here. The present church dates from
1875. The churchyard contains two slabs from local tradition
known as “Crusader Graves” as they have medieval swords carved
on their surfaces.
In times past offenders who committed petty
crimes where punished for their misdemeanours by being tethered
to a tree known as the Joung Tree for all to see. You can
read all about this and more from the plaque on the church gate.
Before you leave make sure you visit the small brewery behind
the Hotel, which makes the local ale Braveheart; it can be
sampled in the hotel.
 The
ruins of Black Castle can still be clearly seen in the field
opposite the school, as you return down East Moulin Road to
Pitlochry. The castle is believed to date back to the 1320s when
Sir John Campbell built it surrounded by the water of a small
lochan that also existed here until it was drained in 1720 for
agricultural land. The castle was inhabited until 1500, the year
of the great plague, allegedly brought here by a messenger who
infected the occupants. It is said the castle was fired on by a
cannon to form a funeral pyre for the victims.
 In
the garden of a private house in Tom-na-moan Road, on the left
hand side can be seen the remains of an old Lime Kiln. In
the 19th century it was discovered that using lime on the acid
Highland agricultural land increased the yield by as much as
three fold. Lime Kilns sprang up all over the Highlands, as
local outcrops of lime were quarried and heated with coal and
finally slaked with water to convert the lime into a powder for
application to the land.
The rocks of lime and coal were poured in at
the top in the ratio 5 parts lime to one of coal. The burnt lime
was drawn from the flues at the bottom of the kiln with long
handled shovels and put on carts for transport back to the
fields.
Pitlochry owes much to Mr John Stewart, who
had the vision and drive to start a small theatre here in
 the
Perthshire hills. Initially starting as a tent within a tent at
Lower Oakfield, moving to its present location in 1981. It is
now known as Pitlochry Theatre has been an immense
success and contributed hugely to Pitlochry’s prosperity over
the years. Unfortunately John Stewart was never to see the full
success of what he had created, as he died suddenly in 1957,
aged 55 leaving his house and the theatre to Pitlochry Festival
Society Ltd.
 Once
you reach the junction of Bonnethill Road and Atholl Road,
the main street in Pitlochry, look back up the hill and imagine
what it must have looked like in years past. The metal railing
seen in this sketch can still be clearly seen, with the Moulin
Burn passing underneath it and the church in the background. The
name of the street comes from the fact that in times past
bonnet-makers lived in the small thatched cottages here.
Dunkeld and Birnam / Battle of Killiecrankie / Pitlochry | 
