Comrie, Perth and Kinross
Comrie is a village and parish in the southern Highlands of Scotland, towards the western end of the Strathearn district of Perth and Kinross, west of Crieff.
Comrie is a historic conservation village in a national scenic area along the River Earn. The village's position on the Highland Boundary Fault causes it to experience more tremors than anywhere else in Britain, thus, it is nicknamed the "Shaky Toun" or "Am Baile Critheanach" in Gaelic. The parish is twinned with Carleton Place in Ontario, Canada.
Location and etymology
Comrie lies within the registration county of Perthshire and the Perth and Kinross local council area. The name Comrie derives from the original Gaelic name con-ruith or comh-ruith translating literally as "running together", but more accurately as "flowing together" or "the place where rivers meet". In modern Gaelic the name is more often transcribed as Comaraidh, Cuimridh or Cuimrigh. This is apt as the village sits at the confluence of three rivers.The River Ruchill and the River Lednock are both tributaries of the Earn at Comrie, which itself eventually feeds into the Tay.
Due to its position astride the Highland Boundary Fault, Comrie undergoes frequent earth tremors and has an old nickname of "Shaky Toun/Toon" or 'Am Baile Critheanach'. In the 1830s around 7,300 tremors were recorded and today Comrie records earth tremors more often and to a higher intensity than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Comrie became the site of one of the world's first seismometers in 1840, and a functional replica is still housed in the Earthquake House in The Ross in Comrie. The position of Comrie on the Highland Boundary Fault also gives the village a claim to the contested title of Gateway to the Highlands. To the north of the village, Ben Chonzie and the Grampian Mountains rise majestically, while to the south of the village broad open moorland is joined by lesser mountains and glens that provide a wide range of terrain and ecology.
History
There is significant evidence of prehistoric habitation of the area, marked by numerous standing stones and archaeological remains that give insight into the original prehistoric, Pictish and later Celtic societies that lived here.In AD 79, the Roman General Agricola chose what are now the outskirts of Comrie as the site for a fort and temporary marching camp, due to the area's strategic position on the southern fringe of the Highlands. It is one of the line of so-called "Glen blocking" forts running from Drumquhassle to Stracathro and including the legionary fortress of Inchtuthil. The temporary camp was c. 22 acre in size. An infamous battle between the Celts and Romans is known to have occurred on the unidentified mountain Mons Graupius. The area around Comrie, Strathearn, is one of several proposed battle sites.
James V of Scotland came to Comrie and Cultybraggan regularly in September to hunt deer. Records survive of the food he consumed included bread, ale and fish sent from Stirling. His consort Mary of Guise and her ladies in waiting also came to the hunting in Glenartney.
Comrie's early prosperity derived from weaving. This was mostly done as domestic piecework. Comrie was also important as a droving town. Cattle destined for the markets of the Scottish Lowlands and ultimately England would be driven south from their grazing areas in the Highlands. River crossings, such as at Comrie, were important staging posts on the way south. Much of the land around Comrie was owned by the Drummond family, Earls of Perth, latterly Earls of Ancaster, whose main seat was Drummond Castle, south of Crieff. Another branch of the Drummonds owned Drummondernoch, to the west of the town. Aberuchill Castle, however, just outside Comrie was originally a Campbell seat.
Over the years the village has grown to incorporate many smaller satellite settlements, including The Ross a small settlement to the west of the village contained within a river peninsula which became more accessible when the Ross Bridge was constructed in 1792. Before that the peninsula was only reached by a river ford. Similarly, the once isolated communities in the surrounding glens and mountains, such as Invergeldie in Glen Lednock and Dalchruin in Glen Artney, have generally come to be seen as part of Comrie village. Previously, they existed as small isolated settlements – for instance, Glen Lednock contained 21 different settlements of 350 individual structures and 25 corn-drying kilns. However, these exclusively Gaelic-speaking hamlets were largely eviscerated by the Highland Clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries. The first earthquake reported in Scottish history occurred in Comrie in 1801; two farmworkers were killed when a barn collapsed during the earthquake.
Comrie underwent something of a renaissance in the early 19th century and Victorian periods as an attractive location for wealthy residents and visitors, an image which has been maintained to this day. This popularity helped to bring the railway in 1893, when the Caledonian Railway completed a branch line from Crieff. The line was later extended to meet the Callander and Oban Railway at Lochearnhead. The Comrie–Lochearnhead line was closed in 1951 and the Comrie–Crieff line in 1964, due largely to the improved road network in the area.
Comrie's mountainous setting with abundant streams and lochs brought a number of hydro-electric power plants into the area in the earlier 20th century. A dam was built in Glen Lednock and water piped to another plant from Loch Earn in the west.
Today Comrie is an attractive retirement village, recording the highest proportion of over-65s in Scotland in the 1991 census. Its economy is supplemented by adventure and wildlife tourism. Like other Highland villages, it has seen an influx of residents in recent decades. Some have bought buy-to-let and second-home conversions, which has tended to raise housing prices and cause tensions with locals. Even so, Comrie retains its spirit, traditions and community feel.
Sights and culture
Architecture
The White Church, the former parish kirk, is Comrie's most striking building, with a prominent tower and spire by the roadside of the ancient churchyard at the heart of the village. This is an early Christian site, dedicated to an obscure early saint, Kessog or Mokessog, who may have flourished in the 8th century. Comrie Parish Church is of a grand Gothic style, disproportionate to anything else in the village, and dominates the distant skyline. It was designed and built in 1881 by George T Ewing. Comrie is also graced by a little-known Charles Rennie Mackintosh building, a shop in the main street with a first floor corner turret built in a version of the Scottish vernacular style.Some of the buildings and homes in the village date back centuries, with many traditional Highland cottages built in dry-stone and/or clay and originally roofed in thatch. In the higher mountain glens around the village, traditional Highland blackhouses, most now in ruins, can also be found. There are a number of grand estate homes and historic castles in the area. For the most part, however, the main quadrants of the village house Victorian and Edwardian buildings, including many large detached villas and small terraces. The newer parts of the village are dominated by modern properties from the 1950s onward, including extremely modern properties of varying character.
Awards
The village won the Royal Horticultural Society "Large Village Britain in Bloom award" in 2007 and 2010. It also won awards in the 2009 Beautiful Scotland Campaign, including Best Village and a special award for Continuous Community Involvement. In 2013 Comrie won gold in the village category of the Beautiful Scotland Awards and a special Community Horticulture Award.Glen Lednock, The Monument and the Deil's Cauldron
A granite obelisk atop Dùn Mòr to the north commemorates Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville. It was designed by James Gillespie Graham in 1812. This monument is reached via a woodland trail through wooded Glen Lednock in which is found the Slocha'n Donish or De'ils Cauldron.The trail begins in the village, at Laggan Park and ascends through a native forest of pines, oak, elm, ash rowan, alder and beech to Glen Lednock. Via The Shaky Bridge, hikers are treated to a splendid view of the glen, a truly Highland landscape, where a single-lane road leads up to Glen Lednock Reservoir and the Munro, Ben Chonzie. From there Dùn Mòr and the Monument are easily reached, offering unparalleled views across Strathearn and further west to the central Highlands.
A swift descent leads through a long, steep, wooded gorge containing the impressive De'il's Cauldron. Here the river has cut a high, cascading waterfall in the surrounding rock, with pools below resembling a boiling cauldron. It is said that a water-elf, Uris-chidh, lives here and tries to lure victims into the treacherous waters. The path down leads to a lesser companion to the great falls, The Wee Cauldron, with a calmer view of the river. The path through the forest eventually returns to the village.
Prisoner-of-war camp
To the south of the village is a military camp at nearby Cultybraggan. During World War II, this was POW Camp 21 for Italian and later German prisoners of war. This was a "black" camp as most of its inmates were ardent Nazis. It became infamous after anti-Nazi German POW Wolfgang Rosterg was lynched there by fellow inmates, who were hanged after the war for the act. Many more difficult Nazis were moved to POW Camp 165 at Watten in Caithness.The camp grounds have a two-storey nuclear bunker, the proposed site for a provincial Scottish government in case of nuclear attack. Even in the 1990s the bunker had accommodation, a telephone exchange, a sewage plant and a BBC studio. In 2007 a local community trust bought the camp and the surrounding of land, under Land Reform legislation, for the sum of £350,000.
In December 2016 Heinrich Steinmeyer, a former Waffen-SS prisoner of the camp until 1948, left Comrie £384,000 in his will, as an expression of "my gratitude to the people of Scotland for the kindness and generosity that I have experienced in Scotland during my imprisonment of war and hereafter." A local trust manages the legacy.