Willie Shand explores Killiecrankie
Willie Shand takes a leap back through time in beautiful Highland Perthshire.
IT’S that time of the year again when the nights have drawn in, and the autumn has well and truly taken hold. There was definitely a hint of winter in the air today as I parked the car at Killiecrankie.
Another three or four weeks and the deep gorge of the River Garry, with its famous Pass of Killiecrankie, will look truly spectacular.
Needless to say, a return visit is already pencilled in the diary, but today I thought I’d take a walk up Glen Girnaig just to see how the colours were taking shape. I wasn’t to be disappointed, either.
When Queen Victoria stopped off at Killiecrankie in 1844, she was quite lost for words.
“I cannot describe how beautiful it is,” she wrote in her diary.
To look down over the gorge from high on the Garry Bridge, one might well be inclined to agree.
The Pass of Killiecrankie, part of the old Faskally Estate, was gifted to the National Trust for Scotland in 1947, and its Visitor Centre is well worth looking in on. I’ve arrived an hour or so before it opens its doors, though, so I’ll save that and a visit to the Soldier’s Leap for afterwards.
Across the road from the Visitor Centre, a singletrack road strikes north for Old Faskally Farm, and as a walker’s sign indicates, this is the start of one of the routes to Ben Vrackie.
It’s a longer but quieter approach to the Ben than the more popular track from above Moulin and Pitlochry.
The thickly wooded, narrow Pass of Killiecrankie will for ever be associated with the battle that was fought nearby on July 27, 1689.
It was a battle between the government forces of William of Orange, under General Hugh Mackay, and the rebellious Highlanders supporting the cause of James VII, led by John Graham of Claverhouse – also known as “Bonnie Dundee”.
But this mile-and-a-halflong pass was well known long before then, as it lay on the main link between the Lowlands and the Highlands.
In 1689, the route through the Pass – along which Mackay and his troops marched – would have been no more than a foot track.
Walking in single file, they must indeed have felt quite vulnerable.
Perhaps this was one of the reasons why General Wade was to improve the route greatly in 1728 when he built his military road between Dunkeld and the city of Inverness.
Today, that route is still largely followed by the A9, though the present dual carriageway runs a bit higher above the gorge.
In a short distance, our walk passes beneath the A9. Crossing a cattle grid and trying not to slip between the slats, I’m amused by a sign on the gate, which reads: Be you goin’, or be you comin’
Be you man, or be you women
Be you early, or be you late
See you mind an’ shut the gate.
In the field nearby, a large flock of sheep is being gathered by the shepherd and his two collies. And a perfect, slick job they make of it, too.
Passing a bench seat, we leave the surfaced road and take to a muddier hill track.
I’m glad I have my boots, as it was particularly wet this morning.
The track and hillside is teeming with pheasants.
Some are running along the road in front of me, others scurry off into the heather and bracken and every so often there’s a great flurry and flapping of wings as one springs up only a few feet away.
They fairly give you a start.
This road steadily climbs the open hillside, with ever-widening views over
Glen Garry.
A few blackface sheep watch from the slope above.
Across the Allt Girnaig, the steep hillside is covered in beautiful birch woods in their glorious autumn colours.
At this time of the year, this landscape is completely transformed.
Up until now, the waters of the Allt
Girnaig have sought little attention, but as I approach the narrowing head of the glen, the river is beginning to raise its voice.
The spectacular Falls of Urrard can be heard a while before they can be seen.
Suddenly, we find ourselves negotiating a steep, narrow gorge through a wonderful series of boardwalks and stairways.
It really is a surprise to find such an outstanding set of falls, and, what’s more, no-one else is around.
Most folk stopping off at Killiecrankie won’t even know these falls exist; thankfully, the long walk to them keeps them that wee bit special.
Oddly enough, they were probably better known by our Victorian ancestors, who seemed to appreciate more the wonders of nature and weren’t so averse to a good walk to find them.
Indeed, this 30-feet-high cascade was considered to be one of the four most beautiful falls in Scotland.
It certainly warrants a photograph.
Steps lead down to the top of the falls, but we can’t cross the river here.
By climbing the steep, grassy banking and following the course of the wide river upstream a few hundred yards, we can soon see the way across – a wee metal bridge above a tumbling weir.
The return now brings us back by the opposite side of Glen Girnaig.
It’s a pleasant track to follow: the birch woods are open and light, and there are lots of far-reaching views as we go.
As we pop out at the woods above Orchilmore, we look on to the busy A9 as it sweeps round the Pass of Killiecrankie.
Thankfully, we don’t have to take our lives in our hands and cross it, as a farm road takes us safely beneath it again.
Fifty yards on, a grass track with a tiny sign reading To Killiecrankie would be easy to miss, and judging by the overgrown grass and nettles, not many have been this way for a while.
Just a little further brings us to a boggy field with a low mound, and on top of it is a wee stone memorial to those who lost their lives on this ground in 1689.
It stands upon the very battleground – the Plain of Urrard.
Beneath this mound is a mass grave containing officers from both sides of one of the goriest of Jacobite battles.
It was all over in the space of just a few minutes, but in that short time more than 600 Jacobites and 2,000 government soldiers lost their lives.
The Jacobites (so named from the Latin Jacobus, for James) may have won the battle, but they didn’t win the war.
And at Killiecrankie they lost their leader, Bonnie Dundee.
Below Urrard, we pass the lone standing stone known as Claverhouse’s Stone, where he was found mortally wounded.
As he breathed his last, he is said to have enquired how the battle went.
“The day goes well for the King, but I am sorry for your lordship,” was the reply.
“It matters less for me,” Dundee returned, “seeing the day goes well for my master.”
Bonnie Dundee was carried to St Bride’s Kirk at Old Blair, where he was laid to rest in his armour.
Following the old Killiecrankie to Blair Atholl road for a short distance brings us to the actual village of Killiecrankie.
It rises on a bend of the road where the path skirts the grounds of the Killiecrankie Hotel, before crossing the road to drop into the magnificent wooded gorge above the raging Garry.
Of course, you can’t follow this path and not go down to view the Soldier’s Leap. It looks particularly fearsome today.
It almost seems impossible that Donald Mcbean, a government sentry, was able to leap across the 18-feet-wide river to escape the Highlanders close on his tail.
In the jump he may have lost his hat and a shoe, but he saved his life.
Needless to say, none of the hairy Highlanders were quite brave enough to follow suit!
Like the wee red squirrel scurrying up the tree beside me, I’m just thankful that peace again envelopes the “Braes o’ Killiecrankie O”, and we are lucky enough to be able to take time to just appreciate the landscape. ■