Lochearnhead (Scottish Gaelic: Ceann Loch Èireann) is a village in Perthshire on the A84 Stirling to Crianlarich road at the foot of Glen Ogle, north of the Highland Boundary Fault. It is situated at the western end of Loch Earn where the A85 road from Crieff meets the A84.
Loch Earn is above sea level, with the settlement running from its shores up to higher ground on the hills at the mouth of Glen Ogle.OS Landranger 51 Lochearnhead lies within the Breadalbane area of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
Early history The first evidence of people in Lochearnhead comes from Mesolithic arrowheads found in Glen Ogle by former local policeman Tom Gibbon, and his son Donald.Mesolithic A settled population is in evidence in the Neolithic period, from a burial chamber at Edinchip,OS Pathfinder 347, grid ref 575 218 and from the cup-marked stones which lie between the Kendrum Burn and the Craggan Road,OS Pathfinder 347, grid ref 589 231 in what is known locally as the Druid Field. There is another site with cup and ring marks at the head of Glen Ogle.
There are two crannogs still visible on Loch Earn, one at the west end of the loch in Carstran Bay, below Edinample Castle, the other at the east end of the loch, at St Fillans, known as Neish Island. (Other submerged possible crannog sites also exist, and recent surveys by the Scottish Crannog CentreThe Scottish Crannog Centre and othersSNH Commissioned Report 093, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs landscape character assessment suggest the known number may increase if the archaeology is enabled to go ahead). These man-made islands probably date from the Bronze Age, although Neish Island was inhabited (latterly by the Clan Neish, for whom it is now named) until 1612.Septs
The Pictish frontier Loch Earn was on the frontier between Pictland and Dalriada, or Dál Riata. Dundurn at the east end of the loch being a Pictish frontier fort.Ritchie, R, (1989), Picts, HMSO. This lends weight to the argument that the name Earn therefore comes from Eireann, in other words "the loch of the Irish".
The siege, by the Scots, of the Pictish Fort of Dundurn in 683 ADAnnals of Ulster, CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts: University College Cork is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster. Giric, (sometimes called Grig), King of Picts and Scots, is said to have been killed at Dundurn in 889, and is buried in Iona.A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002.,
Feudal estates Although Norman nobles had been obtaining land in Scotland for a century beforehand, the coming of the feudal era is attributed to David I of Scotland in the first half of the 12th century. Feudalism proved the backdrop for local history for several centuries, not least in land ownership patterns. The ownership map of the land around Loch Earn changed as land owning families came and went, and the shape of estates fluctuated, partly through the politics of inheritance. Three family names associated with Lochearnhead are MacLaren, Stewart and MacGregor. The first of these is recorded in 1296, when Lauren of Ardveich had his name entered into the Ragman Roll.Ragman Roll, 1296: Names, A The MacLaren burial ground at Leckine was last used in 1993.Clan McLaren of Ardveich burial ground at Leckine
By the time the Stewarts came to Ardvorlich in 1582,McNaughton, D,(1988) The History of Upper Strathearn, Jamieson & Munro. the Reformed church, under the guidance of John Knox, had been adopted in Scotland for more than two decades.
It was nearly two centuries later that the MacGregors acquired Edinchip, in 1778, building the current Edinchip House in 1830.Welcome to Clan Gregor
Language Lochearnhead is a post-Gaelic speaking area. According to the Old Statistical Account of 1799, Scottish Gaelic was the language of the "common people" of the area, although it also tells us that in the spring the young men would go herding in the "low country" (around Stirling), where they would "have the advantage of acquiring the English language". This would in fact have been the Scots language of the Stirlingshire area, rather than Standard English."Parish of Balquhidder", Old Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. 12, 1799.
By 1837, the New Statistical Account tells us that in the area, "Gaelic is the language generally spoken, but it has been rather losing ground within the last forty years"."Parish of Balquhidder", New Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. 10, 1837. At the time of the 1881 Census, when a question about Gaelic was included for the first time, there were still more than 70% in the parish with Gaelic as their first language, and even some with Gaelic as their only language. Linguae Celticae
Regular church services were held locally in Gaelic up until 1930,Beauchamps, E, (1981), The Braes O' Balquhidder, Heatherbank Press. Today the generation which remembers native Gaelic being spoken is fast dying out, and any Gaelic speakers are likely to be either learners or incomers from Gaelic-speaking heartlands. To this day, though, "Church Gaelic" is based on the Perthshire Gaelic dialect.Gaelic, Scottish Ethnologue The first Gaelic Bible was translated by Balquhidder minister Robert Kirk.Antiquarian Books :: ILAB-LILA :: International League of Antiquarian Booksellers
Legends and folklore Each uisge It is said that a water horse, or each-uisge, inhabits Loch Earn, having been chased, in some variants of the legend, out of Loch Tay and across the hills by Fingal. This creature would entice people to ride on its back, but the rider's hands would stick to the creature's neck, and the unfortunate soul would be dragged under water by the Each Uisge to drown.
The unpredictable currents in Loch Earn may have given a ring of truth to this legend.
Fairies The hillock in the Games Field, known as Chieftains' Mound or the Shian (an Sitheann), is said to be a fairy knoll. (Sídhe, sìth or siodhe refers to earthen mounds that were thought to be home to the fairy folk.) In less cynical times, people attuned to the supernatural were said to report green light emanating from it, or to hear the strains of fairy music coming from within.Fairy Knolls in Scotland
Edinample Castle, haunted and cursed Edinample Castle has several legends attached to it. The best-known is that 'Black' Duncan Campbell, a man known for his fury and his ornery nature, had asked the architect to build the castle with a parapet, but on discovering that there was not one threw the hapless architect off the roof to his death. His ghost is said to haunt the castle, wandering around the roof where the parapet should have been.
The building and its inhabitants are also said to be cursed. Depending on which version is told, this curse is either a result of a witch's malediction, or because gravestones were used as building materials.
Yet another legend has it that the 6th century holy man, Saint Blane, cursed the lands and the previous building said to have stood on the spot.
Ardvorlich severed head The following gruesome tale is factual, but is included here in a section on legends since it is recounted for its sensational nature, and because it provided the inspiration for Sir Walter Scott's tale, "A Legend of Montrose".
It was the custom to provide hospitality to anyone who asked for food and shelter. In accordance with this custom, Lady Margaret Stewart at Ardvorlich, pregnant at the time, gave hospitality to some travelling MacGregors. However, they had just come from murdering her brother, John Drummond of Drummonderinoch, and while she was out of the room placed his severed head on a silver platter, and placed in his mouth some of the cold victuals she had served them. She was so distraught that she ran out to the hills and gave birth to James Stewart, later known as Mad Major. The lochan she gave birth by is known as Lochan na Mna, the Lochan of the Woman, on the side of Beinn Domhnuill. Major James Stewart is one of the great historical characters of the Covenanting Wars and is the hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel A Legend of Montrose, in which he changed James Stewart's name to Allan Macauley. This name is actually engraved on the foot of Major Stewart's gravestone in the Stewarts of Ardvorlich old kirk of Dundurn just outside the village of St Fillans on the shores of Loch Earn.Stewarts of Ardvorlich
Ardvorlich Lifting Stone
Outside Ardvorlich house sits a large granite boulder. This is the Ardvorlich Lifting Stone. It is smooth, round, unbalanced and seldom lifted due to its incredible weight and lack of grip. The stone was weighed at 152kg (or 332lbs) and sits in the shade of trees; as a result, it can have a green, mossy tinge to it. As of 2023, the stone has been lifted to chest by fewer than twenty stone lifters and has only been shouldered four times. As such, it has earned a reputation as being the pinnacle of Scottish stone lifting, akin to the Husafell Stone in Iceland. No formal permission is required to lift the stone, but it is a local courtesy to make introductions to the residents of Ardvorlich House.
Development of communications Like many highland communities, until the coming of the military road, Lochearnhead consisted of little more than a scattered collection of cottages, crofts, and the more prosperous farms associated with the estates. The first part of the old Lochearnhead Hotel was built in 1746,Cameron, E, (1994), "Strathyre, Balquhidder & Lochearnhead in old photographs", Stirling District Libraries. taking advantage of the improving communications. Before that, the area had been served by the much smaller and more primitive Lochearnhead Old Inn, which stood opposite where the village shop is now, and whose ruins were still in evidence until they were demolished in the 1980s, due to their dangerous condition.
The military road"Military Roads In Scotland" Scots History Online was built in the aftermath of the Jacobite risings, and its coming, along with the hotel, gave focus to the village centre, until then little more than a few houses at the junction between the old roads that ran along the routes of the current A84 and A85. One of the original drove routes south ran down Glen Ogle and along the northern side of Loch Earn to Crieff. When the market was switched to Falkirk in around 1700, the main route ran south from Lochearnhead.A. R. B. Haldane (1952) The Drove Roads of Scotland, Thomas Nelson and SonsThe Highland Drovers
A minute of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, dated 3 April 1714, sets aside monies for the founding of a school at Lochearnhead. This is the old school, now a dwelling, which stands on the roadside by what was known as the Loanie, a track running beside the old Raven's Croft. The Loanie was blocked off when the houses comprising what is now Ravenscroft Road were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1750, work began on the military road from Stirling to Fort William. This ran by Callander, Lochearnhead and Tyndrum and when it was completed, the village rose in prominence. A Post Office was opened in 1800.
According to the Minute Book of the Deacons Court of the Free Church, between the founding of the Free Church of Scotland, as a result of the Disruption of 1843, and the starting of the minute book in 1846, Lochearnhead had a Free Church, a Church School and a Manse. The church passed back to the Church of Scotland after the reunion of 1929, and fell out of use in the 1970s. It is now a dwelling house. The Manse is now the Mansewood Country House Hotel. The school referred to is the current school, situated on School Lane, behind the village hall.