Burn O’Vat

The Burn O'Vat, known locally as "the Vat," is a great rock cauldron set into a gorge in the Muir of Dinnet reserve, a couple of miles west of Dinnet village. It measures around 13 metres deep and 18 across, and the approach is half the appeal. You follow the burn upstream, and what looks like a dead end of tumbled boulders turns out to conceal a narrow cleft. Step through it and the rock opens into a wide circular chamber, with a waterfall spilling in at the far side.

It was carved at the end of the last ice age, around 16,000 years ago. As the glaciers melted, meltwater forced rocks and gravel round and round in a whirlpool against the granite, grinding out the bowl you see today.

There is a darker history here too. In the 17th century the Vat served as a hideout for Patrick Gilroy MacGregor, a cattle thief and outlaw known as Gilderoy, who was caught and hanged in 1658. The tale that Rob Roy also sheltered here is often repeated, but it isn't true.

The Vat has a reputation as a bolthole for outlaws, and one name comes up more than any other: Gilderoy. His real name was Patrick MacGregor, and in the 1630s he led a band of cattle thieves and blackmailers who raided across Strathspey, Braemar and the country around Aberdeen. The nickname comes from the Gaelic Gille Ruadh, the red-haired lad. The shallow hollow behind the waterfall is still known as Gilderoy's Cave, where he's said to have sheltered from his pursuers one day when the burn was in full spate.

The authorities wanted him badly. In 1636 the Privy Council issued warrants ordering local landowners to hunt him down and not give up until he was caught or driven out, and two of them, including the laird of Drum, were censured for sheltering him. He was caught that same year, taken to Edinburgh and hanged.

You'll see his death given as 1658 in a few places, including some of the signs and guides round here. That comes from later ballads and printed tales that dressed up his life and got muddled with a different outlaw. The records point to 1636.

And the other story, the one you'll hear most often, that Rob Roy MacGregor hid in the Vat? That one isn't true either. Rob Roy lived a hundred years later and rarely, if ever, came this far east. The tale likely stuck because both men were MacGregors and both ended up in song. Gilderoy was here. Rob Roy almost certainly wasn't.