Innerpeffray Library – Old Books and Lunch in Muthill
A few hours.
The route
Innerpeffray began in about 1680 as a free lending library for the people round about, and its books are still on the shelves of a quiet Georgian building in the fields near Crieff.
A guide shows you round and brings old atlases, bestiaries and the borrowers' register out for you to see. Lunch is a few miles on at the Coorie Inn in Muthill, an award-winning village inn.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is Cromlix, 8 miles away.
Then The Old Farmhouse, 10 miles away. Sleeps 8.
On a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, book a table at the Coorie Inn for about 12.15pm, after the library: it serves lunch Thursday to Saturday only, noon to 2pm, a Sunday roast from noon, and it is shut on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The day
Innerpeffray
It's a morning in the quiet farmland of Strathearn, with an hour or more among some of the oldest books in Scotland. Then a short drive through Crieff to Muthill, where lunch is waiting at the village inn.
About three hours
Innerpeffray Library
An attraction
The library is reached from the B8062 between Crieff and Kinkell Bridge, and the last three quarters of a mile is a single-track lane shared with tractors, sheep and deer, so go slowly. A sat nav stops you halfway along: keep going to the free car park at the end, about 50 metres from the door. David Drummond, Lord Madertie, began the library in about 1680 so that local people could borrow his books, and the building you see went up about sixty years later beside the Drummonds' chapel. A guide takes you round and will bring books out for you to look at closely, from hand-coloured atlases to old bestiaries, and show you the borrowers' register, where centuries of local readers signed for their books. It opens from March to October only, Wednesday to Saturday from 10am and on Sunday from 2pm, and entry is £10 at the time of writing, with under-16s free. The lower gallery has a ramp and an accessible toilet; the library itself is up 16 shallow spiral stairs with a handrail, and the guide will bring books down if stairs are hard. There's no café, only self-service drinks in the old schoolroom.
16 min by car
Coorie Inn
Lunch
Drive 16 minutes by Crieff to Muthill for lunch at the Coorie Inn on Willoughby Street, a village inn with two AA rosettes and open fires in its bar and lounge. It serves lunch Thursday to Saturday from noon to 2pm and a Sunday roast from noon, and it's shut on Mondays and Tuesdays, so come Thursday to Saturday and book a table for about 12.15pm. The entrance is said to be step-free, and children are welcome.
If it rains
The library is all indoors, so rain changes nothing but the short walk from the car park on the grass and gravel path.