Looking one way towards Pitlochry and Perth
On Friday I learned that to stay in a Pitlochry Bed and Breakfast could cost me £180 per night. Yesterday I learned that the plush new development in Aberfeldy is built “part with American, part money from the bankers of Edinburgh”.
The plush clubhouse at Aberfeldy
This estimation was given by a resident of my adjacent village. She had even sharper words for Kenmore which she said had turned from a lovely place in the Highlands to a gated place for the “friends of Donald Trump”.
It should be said, I was speaking to a resident of Kinloch Rannoch half way between the marquee billowing in the wind and the new village centre that we had come from. There is clearly not a part of Perthshire that has not been touched by the wand of money! The marquee I was told had on Friday housed the wake to a local funeral.
Famously, Donald Trump came from Scotland and the country has been anointed by him with his blessing.
But the mountain of Schiehallion still looks on and the foul blasts still whistle down the loch from Rannoch Moor,
looking the other way to Rannoch Moor
In defence of Kenmore (altho’ I think the resident you spoke to would be referring to what they’re doing to The Taymouth Estate beside the village. The project involves a full historic restoration of Taymouth Castle, completed in 2024, the construction of a new north wing, the full renovation of the existing golf course, and the construction of approximately 145 homes, which will be developed in 6 phases):
Robert Burns visited Kenmore in Perthshire during his 1787 Highland Tour, staying at what is now the Kenmore Hotel, reputedly Scotland’s oldest inn.
Impressed by the scenery, he wrote “Verses Written with a Pencil over the Chimney-piece, In the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth” on the wall. It’s still there today.
“Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O’er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th’ abodes of coveyed grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious, I pursue,
Till fam’d Breadalbaine opens to my view.
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods, wild-scattered, clothe their ample sides;
Th’ outstretching lake, imbosomed ‘mong the hills,
The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay meandering sweet in infant pride,
The palace rising on his verdant side;
The lawns wood-fringed in Nature’s native taste;
The hillocks dropt in Nature’s careless haste,
The arches striding o’er the new-born stream;
The village glittering in the noontide beam.
“Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wandring by the hermit’s mossy cell:
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;
Th’ incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods
Here Poesy might wake her heaven taught lyre,
And look through Nature with creative fire;
Here, to the wrongs of Fate half reconcil’d,
Misfortune’s lightened steps might wander wild;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter rankling wounds:
Here heart-struck Grief might heavenward stretch her scan,
And injured Worth forget and pardon Man.”