Lochearnhead
Lochearnhead is a village in Perthshire on the A84 Stirling to Crianlarich road at the foot of Glen Ogle, north of the Highland Boundary Fault. It is situated at the western end of Loch Earn where the A85 road from Crieff meets the A84.
Loch Earn is above sea level, with the settlement running from its shores up to higher ground on the hills at the mouth of Glen Ogle. Lochearnhead lies within the Breadalbane area of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
Early history
The first evidence of people in Lochearnhead comes from Mesolithic arrowheads found in Glen Ogle by former local policeman Tom Gibbon, and his son Donald. A settled population is in evidence in the Neolithic period, from a burial chamber at Edinchip, and from the cup-marked stones which lie between the Kendrum Burn and the Craggan Road, in what is known locally as the Druid Field. There is another site with cup and ring marks at the head of Glen Ogle.There are two crannogs still visible on Loch Earn, one at the west end of the loch in Carstran Bay, below Edinample Castle, the other at the east end of the loch, at St Fillans, known as Neish Island.. These man-made islands probably date from the Bronze Age, although Neish Island was inhabited until 1612.
The Pictish frontier
Loch Earn was on the frontier between Pictland and Dalriada, or Dál Riata. Dundurn at the east end of the loch being a Pictish frontier fort. This lends weight to the argument that the name Earn therefore comes from Eireann, in other words "the loch of the Irish".The siege, by the Scots, of the Pictish Fort of Dundurn in 683 AD is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster. Giric,, King of Picts and Scots, is said to have been killed at Dundurn in 889, and is buried in Iona.
Feudal estates
Although Norman nobles had been obtaining land in Scotland for a century beforehand, the coming of the feudal era is attributed to David I of Scotland in the first half of the 12th century. Feudalism proved the backdrop for local history for several centuries, not least in land ownership patterns. The ownership map of the land around Loch Earn changed as land owning families came and went, and the shape of estates fluctuated, partly through the politics of inheritance. Three family names associated with Lochearnhead are MacLaren, Stewart and MacGregor. The first of these is recorded in 1296, when Lauren of Ardveich had his name entered into the Ragman Roll. The MacLaren burial ground at Leckine was last used in 1993.By the time the Stewarts came to Ardvorlich in 1582, the Reformed church, under the guidance of John Knox, had been adopted in Scotland for more than two decades.
It was nearly two centuries later that the MacGregors acquired Edinchip, in 1778, building the current Edinchip House in 1830.
Language
Lochearnhead is a post-Gaelic speaking area. According to the Old Statistical Account of 1799, Scottish Gaelic was the language of the "common people" of the area, although it also tells us that in the spring the young men would go herding in the "low country", where they would "have the advantage of acquiring the English language". This would in fact have been the Scots language of the Stirlingshire area, rather than Standard English.By 1837, the New Statistical Account tells us that in the area, "Gaelic is the language generally spoken, but it has been rather losing ground within the last forty years". At the time of the 1881 Census, when a question about Gaelic was included for the first time, there were still more than 70% in the parish with Gaelic as their first language, and even some with Gaelic as their only language.
Regular church services were held locally in Gaelic up until 1930, Today the generation which remembers native Gaelic being spoken is fast dying out, and any Gaelic speakers are likely to be either learners or incomers from Gaelic-speaking heartlands. To this day, though, "Church Gaelic" is based on the Perthshire Gaelic dialect. The first Gaelic Bible was translated by Balquhidder minister Robert Kirk.
Legends and folklore
Each uisge
It is said that a water horse, or each-uisge, inhabits Loch Earn, having been chased, in some variants of the legend, out of Loch Tay and across the hills by Fingal. This creature would entice people to ride on its back, but the rider's hands would stick to the creature's neck, and the unfortunate soul would be dragged under water by the Each Uisge to drown.The unpredictable currents in Loch Earn may have given a ring of truth to this legend.
Fairies
The hillock in the Games Field, known as Chieftains' Mound or the Shian, is said to be a fairy knoll. In less cynical times, people attuned to the supernatural were said to report green light emanating from it, or to hear the strains of fairy music coming from within.Edinample Castle, haunted and cursed
has several legends attached to it. The best-known is that 'Black' Duncan Campbell, a man known for his fury and his ornery nature, had asked the architect to build the castle with a parapet, but on discovering that there was not one threw the hapless architect off the roof to his death. His ghost is said to haunt the castle, wandering around the roof where the parapet should have been.The building and its inhabitants are also said to be cursed. Depending on which version is told, this curse is either a result of a witch's malediction, or because gravestones were used as building materials.
Yet another legend has it that the 6th century holy man, Saint Blane, cursed the lands and the previous building said to have stood on the spot.
Ardvorlich severed head
The following gruesome tale is factual, but is included here in a section on legends since it is recounted for its sensational nature, and because it provided the inspiration for Sir Walter Scott's tale, "A Legend of Montrose".It was the custom to provide hospitality to anyone who asked for food and shelter. In accordance with this custom, Lady Margaret Stewart at Ardvorlich, pregnant at the time, gave hospitality to some travelling MacGregors. However, they had just come from murdering her brother, John Drummond of Drummonderinoch, and while she was out of the room placed his severed head on a silver platter, and placed in his mouth some of the cold victuals she had served them. She was so distraught that she ran out to the hills and gave birth to James Stewart, later known as Mad Major. The lochan she gave birth by is known as Lochan na Mna, the Lochan of the Woman, on the side of Beinn Domhnuill. Major James Stewart is one of the great historical characters of the Covenanting Wars and is the hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel A Legend of Montrose, in which he changed James Stewart's name to Allan Macauley. This name is actually engraved on the foot of Major Stewart's gravestone in the Stewarts of Ardvorlich old kirk of Dundurn just outside the village of St Fillans on the shores of Loch Earn.
Ardvorlich Lifting Stone
Outside Ardvorlich house sits a curious large granite boulder. This is the Ardvorlich Lifting Stone. It is smooth, round, unbalanced and seldom lifted due to its incredible weight and lack of grip. The stone was weighed at 152kg or 332lbs. The stone sits in the shade of trees and as a result can have a green, mossy tinge to it. As of 2023 the stone has been lifted to chest by less than twenty stone lifters. It has only been shouldered four times. As such, many would say it is the pinnacle of Scottish stone lifting. Akin to the Husafell Stone in Iceland. No formal permission is required to lift the stone, however, it is courtesy to make yourself known to the residents of Ardvorlich House. Moreover, it is crucial to respect the stone as it is a historic artifact. Always lower the stone as gently as you can after lifting.Development of communications
Like many highland communities, until the coming of the military road, Lochearnhead consisted of little more than a scattered collection of cottages, crofts, and the more prosperous farms associated with the estates. The first part of the old Lochearnhead Hotel was built in 1746, taking advantage of the improving communications. Before that, the area had been served by the much smaller and more primitive Lochearnhead Old Inn, which stood opposite where the village shop is now, and whose ruins were still in evidence until they were demolished in the 1980s, due to their dangerous condition.The military road was built in the aftermath of the Jacobite risings, and its coming, along with the hotel, gave focus to the village centre, until then little more than a few houses at the junction between the old roads that ran along the routes of the current A84 and A85. One of the original drove routes south ran down Glen Ogle and along the northern side of Loch Earn to Crieff. When the market was switched to Falkirk in around 1700, the main route ran south from Lochearnhead.
A minute of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, dated 3 April 1714, sets aside monies for the founding of a school at Lochearnhead. This is the old school, now a dwelling, which stands on the roadside by what was known as the Loanie, a track running beside the old Raven's Croft. The Loanie was blocked off when the houses comprising what is now Ravenscroft Road were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1750, work began on the military road from Stirling to Fort William. This ran by Callander, Lochearnhead and Tyndrum and when it was completed, the village rose in prominence. A Post Office was opened in 1800.
According to the Minute Book of the Deacons Court of the Free Church, between the founding of the Free Church of Scotland, as a result of the Disruption of 1843, and the starting of the minute book in 1846, Lochearnhead had a Free Church, a Church School and a Manse. The church passed back to the Church of Scotland after the reunion of 1929, and fell out of use in the 1970s. It is now a dwelling house. The Manse is now the Mansewood Country House Hotel. The school referred to is the current school, situated on School Lane, behind the village hall.
It was the coming of the railways that had the greatest effect on the village. In 1870, the Callander and Oban Railway, was completed and in 1904 the railway was extended along Loch Earn to St Fillans and Crieff, making Lochearnhead an easy place to visit. With the rise in Scottish tourism in Victorian times, the town became a popular destination from which tourists could enjoy the tranquility of Loch Earn. A number of small hotels were built around 1900. A motor vessel, the Queen of Loch Earn, plied the loch from 1922 until 1936, after which she was moored at St Fillans and used as a houseboat. The railways were short-lived and with the rise of motor transport, the St Fillans rail line closed in 1951. Although Beeching cuts included for the closure of the main line in 1965, it was actually closed because of landslides in Glen Ogle shortly before the planned closure date. The rockfall itself was a very minor affair, and has nothing to do with the many boulders visible above and below the line, which have been there for thousands of years, however in response to the local minister offering to clear it up, it was alleged by British Rail engineers that there was a great risk of a larger amount of material coming down. This was publicised on TV at the time. This prediction has not yet happened, and it was notable that nothing significant happened to that side of the valley in August 2004.
August 2004 saw more landslides, this time across the glen from railway line. The road was engulfed in mud, after unusually heavy and prolonged rain, trapping several motorists, and bringing the attention of the national and international media as the world debated climate change and "wild weather".