Glen Almond – A Waterfall, Ossian's Stone and Lunch in Crieff
A few hours.
The route
Glen Almond runs down out of the hills to the west of Perth.
Buchanty Spout is a small falls on the River Almond, known for its leaping salmon, and further up the Sma' Glen is a narrow pass on the edge of the Highlands with a legend or two of its own.
The day
Glen Almond
A morning following the River Almond up into the hills, then back down to Crieff for lunch.
About three hours
Buchanty Spout
At Buchanty Spout the River Almond pours over a small rocky falls and a stretch of rapids, and it's free to see. Park in the car park just south of the road bridge; the falls are a couple of minutes' walk away on a clear path. Salmon leap the falls on their way upriver to spawn, most often in late summer and autumn and after heavy rain, so stay a while and watch. The ground beside the falls is rocky and slippery when wet, so take care.
5 min by car
The Sma' Glen
The Sma' Glen is about 5 minutes' drive on, up the A822. It is the narrow middle stretch of Glen Almond, where the road and the river share the floor of a deep pass. Ossian's Stone is a great square boulder a few yards off the road, under a mile before Newton Bridge, with space for one car beside it. General Wade's soldiers moved it out of the way in the 1730s while building their military road, and found a small stone cist beneath. The story goes that it was the grave of Ossian, the legendary poet. Wordsworth came down the glen in 1803 and later wrote: 'In this still place remote from men / Sleeps Ossian, in the Narrow Glen.' The lay-bys at Newton Bridge are a little further on, at the top of the glen.
15 min by car
The Winter Garden at Crieff Hydro
Lunch
Crieff Hydro is about 15 minutes' drive back down the glen, on the northern edge of Crieff; park in the hotel's main car park. Lunch in the Winter Garden, a light-filled room under glass that has been part of the hotel since 1901, is served every day from 11.30am to 3.30pm. The hotel says restaurant times can change, so check its website or app. There is a children's menu and step-free access with lifts. Only guide and hearing dogs are allowed, and it takes cards only.
If it rains
The falls and the glen are a short walk from the car, and lunch is under a roof.
On the way
- Fowlis Wester's Pictish cross-slab
Fowlis Wester is a small village a little way north of the A85, east of Crieff. A copy of its great Pictish cross-slab, over three metres tall, stands inside iron railings in the middle of the village, with a cross on its front and riders, a hound and Pictish symbols carved on its back. The stone itself, thought to date from around 800 and to have first stood beside a long-gone chapel at Buchanty, was moved into the parish church in 1991 to protect it. The church is opened by arrangement: Mid Strathearn Church's website gives the number to ring.
Damsel Bakery, a café in Crieff.
Photographs by Colm Curran, Luke Vogelpohl and The Winter Garden via Google