Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
GLENEAGLES
Gleneagles
Hotel
T
0800 389 3737, restaurant
T
0800 389 3737,
W
gleneagles.com.
Just west of
Auchterarder, at the southern edge of Strathearn, lies
Gleneagles,
which is famously home to three
championship golf courses. Wrapped by more than
800 acres of countryside, the resort has welcomed
leaders and celebrities from every corner of the globe. If
staying the night is beyond your means, consider eating
at the main restaurant, the refreshingly unstuffy
Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles
(£95 for three courses),
which has two Michelin stars and is perhaps the finest
restaurant in all of Scotland, with dynamic dishes like
roast fillet of b
rill w
ith seaweed butter.
Mon-Sat
6.30pm-10pm.
£335
Crieff and around
At the heart of Strathearn sits the old spa town of
CRIEFF
, in a lovely position on a
south-facing slope of the Grampian foothills. Cattle drovers used to come to a market, or
“tryst”, here in the eighteenth century, but Crieff really came into its own with the arrival
of the railway in 1856. Shortly after that, Morrison's Academy, a local private school, took
in its first pupils, and in 1868 the grand
Crieff Hydro
, then known as the
Strathearn
Hydropathic
, opened its doors to Victorian visitors seeking water-therapy cures. hese days,
Crieff values its respectability and has an array of fine Edwardian and Victorian houses,
with a busy little centre that retains something of the atmosphere of the former spa town.
Famous Grouse Experience
At the Glenturret Distillery, a mile north of Crieff • Daily: March-Oct 9am-6pm (last tour 4.30pm); Nov-Feb 10am-5pm (last tour
3.30pm) • £9.95 •
W
www.thefamousgrouse.com • Catch any bus going to Crieff, Comrie or St Fillans and ask the driver to drop you at the
bottom of the Glenturret Distillery road, from where it's a 5min walk
From Crieff, it's a short drive or a twenty-minute walk north to the
Famous Grouse
Experience
, located at the venerable
Glenturret Distillery
just off the A85 to Comrie.
Glenturret is Scotland's
oldest distillery
, established in 1775, and still one of the
more attractive, with whitewashed buildings and pagoda roofs situated beside a
gurgling stream. In recent years it has become the home of the Famous Grouse
blend. While the corporate edge may be hard to avoid, and the coach park is often
full, this is one distillery that makes a decent effort to be family-friendly and to
avoid much of the romanticized pomposity which comes with other parts of the
malt whisky trail.
Innerpeffray Library
Four miles southeast of Crieff on the B8062 road to Auchterarder • March-Oct Wed-Sat 10am-12.45pm & 2-4.45pm, Sun 2-4pm;
Nov-Feb phone for appointment • £5 •
T
01764 652819,
W
innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk
Little known but well worth a visit is the delightfully hidden
Innerpeffray Library
,
situated in an attractive eighteenth-century building right by the River Earn. Beside an
old stone chapel and schoolhouse, this serene and studious public library, founded in
1680, is the oldest in Scotland. It's a must for bibliophiles, its shelves containing some
four thousand cloth and leather-bound books, mainly on theological and classical
subjects, which visitors are allowed to browse.
Drummond Castle Gardens
Near Muthill, two miles south of Crieff on the A822 • May-Oct daily 1-6pm (last admission 5pm) • £5 •
W
drummondcastlegardens.co.uk
• Take bus #47 or #18 from Crieff towards Muthill, then walk a mile and a half up the castle drive
Of all the attractions around Crieff, most impressive are the magnificent
Drummond
Castle Gardens
. he approach, up a splendid avenue of beech trees, is pretty enough, but
by crossing the courtyard of the castle to the grand terrace you can view the garden in all
its symmetrical glory. It was begun as early as 1630 (the date of the tall central sundial),
though the design of the French/Italianate parterre is Victorian: it depicts a St Andrew's
cross and incorporates other images associated with the Drummonds, including two
