PerthshireCrieffStrathearn Local History

Ochtertyre -tales of mass murder and romantic poetry ! Excerts from “Beauties of Upper Strathearn “ – an 1860 Tourist Guide The mansion house is situated about half way down the slope and is a plain modern and commodious building. At the foot of the slope there is a beautiful sheet of water, on the promontory of which stands the donjon of an old fortress that once occupied the whole of the promontory. To the west of the mansion house there is an observatory most picturesquely situated and designed. Granite Lodge  The tourist , sending forward his vehicle to the lower west lodge , may enter the grounds   by the east avenue   at what is called the Granite Lodge .On the left , at half distance between the lodge and the mansion   may be seen the family mausoleum , a massive   and tasteful structure of Gothic architecture, erected in 1809 and adorned   with suitable windows of   stained glass. On a black marble tablet, under the large window at the west end, are

                            The Campus , The Cursus and The Stayt   Colin Mayall  Crieff November 2009 (Updated February 2010 , May 2014)       Crieff’s Cursus - The Symbolic River ( written 2006 ) Perhaps you had noticed that they were digging ditches and doing all sorts of things in the field where the new Crieff High school is scheduled to be built? . This was   a sort of preamble to the building work commencing in the near future ( after November 2007 ) . It is now a pre requisite of all building works that where there is an important site of historic interest archaeological work must be undertaken prior to works commencing . The proximity to the   old Stayt of Crieff ( the “ Parliament “ of old Strathearn ) was the reason . That was the spot where the Stewards of Strathearn sat on the elevated pimple that occupied the site   until the mid 19 th century . They had removed themselves to the comfort of  the new Town House in

                                  Weavers of Strathearn For Strathearn, the diminution in importance of the Michaelmas Fair or Market brought about by the collapse of the cattle trade,was to a certain extent offset by the rapid growth of the linen trade. Traditionally,rural communities had always had a weaving tradition although mostly in wool.With the Union of Parliaments, the protective tariffs set up by the English state were abolished and at last Scottish merchants were given equal opportunities to deal with the lucrative London market where the light ,cheap linen cloths had begun to usurp the hold of the traditional woollen garment. A " count " of heads in Scotland had been carried out around 1755 by Dr Webster. This is a useful base to compare with later figures. Indeed in The Statistical Account of Scotland edited by Sir John Sinclair and covering the period 1791 to 1799, the contributors for each parish, invariably the local minister, estimate