County in Scotland
Perthshire
Perthshire is where Scotland crowned its kings, weighed the Earth on a mountainside and still has a duke with the only legal private army in Europe.
Key information
- County
- Perthshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Scone Palace, Big Tree Country, whisky, Gleneagles, the Highland Boundary
- Famous people
- Ewan McGregor, John Buchan, Lady Nairne, Beatrix Potter (holidays)
- Football clubs
- St Johnstone
About Perthshire
The county that weighed the Earth
In 1774 the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, camped beside Schiehallion, the neat, conical mountain in the middle of Perthshire. His plan was to measure how far the mountain's mass pulled a plumb line sideways. From that he could work out the density of the whole planet. It worked, and it had a lovely side effect. To calculate the mountain's volume, the mathematician Charles Hutton used lines joining points of equal height. It was an important early use of contours in land surveying. Contour lines already existed: Nicolaas Cruquius's 1727 chart of the River Merwede used lines joining points of equal depth. Schiehallion is still one of the most climbed hills in Scotland, and every walker on it is standing on a piece of scientific history.
Where Scotland made its kings
Just outside Perth stands Scone Palace, once the crowning place of Scottish monarchs. The Stone of Scone, also called the Stone of Destiny, sat here until Edward I carried it off to Westminster Abbey in 1296. Charles II was crowned at Scone in 1651, the last coronation held on Scottish soil. The Stone came home to Scotland in 1996 and now sits in Perth Museum, which opened in 2024. Perth was effectively a capital in the Middle Ages, and it saw plenty of drama. In 1437 James I was murdered at the Blackfriars monastery there. In 1396 two clans fought a staged battle on the North Inch before the king and his court. Sir Walter Scott later used the episode in The Fair Maid of Perth, which is where the city's nickname, the Fair City, comes from.
Big Tree Country
Perthshire markets itself as Big Tree Country, and the claim is earned. At Fortingall, in Glen Lyon, stands a yew thought to be anything from 2,000 to several thousand years old. Local legend says Pontius Pilate was born in the village, a story that is much more fun than it is provable. At Birnam, the Birnam Oak is a survivor of the ancient forest in Shakespeare's Macbeth, where Malcolm's army cut branches to disguise its advance on Dunsinane. Nearby Dunkeld is where the young Beatrix Potter spent holidays, absorbing the woods, animals and fungi that fed into her later drawings. Dunkeld Cathedral stands on the banks of the Tay, and some of the larches around the town were planted by the Dukes of Atholl in the 18th century, a famous experiment in forestry.
Whisky, raspberries and a private army
Pitlochry has the Edradour distillery, one of the smallest in Scotland. Near Crieff, Glenturret distillery, founded in 1763, later housed the Famous Grouse Experience visitor attraction. The brand itself began with Perth-based Matthew Gloag & Son, who launched The Grouse blend in 1896. Pitlochry's dam also has a fish ladder, where salmon can be watched climbing upstream. Blairgowrie and the Carse of Gowrie are celebrated for soft fruit. Raspberry fields once drew whole families from cities and travelling communities for the summer harvest, and Blairgowrie's name is bound up with the berry. Then there is Blair Castle, home of the Duke of Atholl. The Atholl Highlanders, raised in 1777, are Europe's only legal private army, and Queen Victoria granted them the right to bear arms and colours after a visit in 1844. They still parade at Blair Atholl, and they are mostly ceremonial now.
Golf, football and Highland games
Gleneagles, opened as a grand railway hotel in 1924, hosted the 2014 Ryder Cup, which Europe won. Its courses are among the most famous in Scotland. In football, St Johnstone from Perth did something extraordinary in 2021. The club won the Scottish Cup and the League Cup in the same 2020–21 season. Their first major trophy had come in 2014, when they won the Scottish Cup, so the 2021 triumph was their second in that competition. Their home is McDiarmid Park. Highland games take place in places like Crieff and Aberfeldy through the summer, with caber tossing, hill races and piping. At Aberfeldy you can also see the Black Watch memorial, since the regiment was first mustered nearby in 1740.
Where Highlands meet Lowlands
Perthshire sits across the Highland Boundary Fault, where the flat farmland of the Lowlands rises quickly into mountains, glens and lochs such as Loch Tay and Loch Tummel. That landscape is why Victorian visitors flocked here, helped by the railways. It is also why the county has produced so many storytellers. John Buchan, author of The Thirty-Nine Steps, was born in Perth. Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, born at Gask, wrote Scottish songs including The Rowan Tree. Ewan McGregor was born in Perth and grew up in Crieff.