The Parish of Logierait

by the Rev R M Gilmore

Physical Basis. The parish lies in the valleys of the Tay and Tummel which meet about a mile below the parish church. The limits of the parish have undergone many changes. In the valley of the Tay, it once included Aberfeldybeg, or Aber­feldy west of the burn of Moness. In 1301, the Earl of Atholl conveyed these lands to Sir Alexander Menzies, and when parish boundaries were re-arranged Aberfeldybeg was transferred to Dull. A parish quoad sacra was later established in the growing town of Aberfeldy and the boundary of Logierait marched with the Pitilie burn. The establishment of a church in Grandtully, near the castle, further reduced Logierait as an ecclesiastical unit and confined it to the north bank of the Tay. Here it stretched from Clochfoldich eastward, but in a vacancy in 1946 the Strathtay part as far east as the boundary between Pitnacree and the Tulloch of Ballechin, formerly Over Ballechin, was made separate and united with Grand­tully. In the valley of the Tummel, the limit in the north is beyond Donevourd; to the south, the parish meets Dunkeld and Dowally south of the Haugh of Tullymet. As a registration district, the parish at present includes Strathtay, but not Grandtully. For county and district council matters, Logierait includes both districts. The beauty of the parish, so eloquently described in former Accounts, can be little less to-day. The wooded hills, the rich fields, the two great rivers and the high mountains beyond make it one of the fairest parts of Scotland. The climate is probably as good as is to be found in the Highlands. Most of the rain falls farther to the west and to the east the hills give shelter from the most biting winds. Late frosts in spring, however, often affect the fruit trees and the early potatoes.

The name of the parish is of Gaelic origin and is derived from lagaiglz a hollow and rat/a from the adjacent eminence. From very early times this has been associated with the administration of law and justice over the ancient province of Atholl, itself one of the 7 mormaerships of the Pictish kingdom and, later, one of the great earldoms of the kingdom of the Scots. The village of Logierait is upon occasion in ancient documents also referred to as Logy Mached — the hollow of St Ched, as the parish church is understood to occupy the site of a very early Christian foundation of this saint, a missionary of the Columban community from the Abbey of Tona.

History. Here, as almost everywhere in the Highlands, the last century has been a period of the most profound and rapid change; the situation of the parish, astride the great highway from Perth to the north, and the roads that on both banks of the Tay link east and west, makes it particularly vulnerable to the influence of the south. The most notable building in the district is the Castle of Grandtully, built in 1560 and still inhabited, though much improved and modernised. About half a mile from it is the ancient Church of St Mary built by the Stewarts of Grand­tully in The ceiling is curiously painted. The building is now preserved as an ancient monument and the churchyard is occasionally used for the burial of members of old families in the district. An annual service is held in the church in summer by the Presbytery of Dunkeld. Logierait village itself now possesses few traces of its former importance. Nothing now remains of the Hall of the Court of Regality, said to have been the noblest apartment in Perthshire, 70 feet in length with galleries at either end. One hundred lairds and gentlemen of Atholl sat here in frill session under Atholl or his hereditary Commissioner, Stewart of Ballechin, on great occasions until the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions after the Rising of i Of the Prison of the Regality, a few great stones arc to be seen in the yard of the hotel. After the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745 6oo prisoners were sent here by Lord George Murray, Lieut.-Gcncral of the army of Prince Charles Edward. Rob Roy MacGregor was brought here a prisoner in 1717 but escaped by a crafty subterfuge after only one night’s confinement. The heavy iron gate or ‘yctt’ of the prison is in the keeping of the kirk session after being at Ballechin House, the home of the Bailics of Atholl, the Stewarts of that ilk, since the demolition of the gaol.

The height above the high bank of the Tummel, just north of the present road bridge over that river, forms the rath of Logierait, a very early fortified position, surrounded on the sides not facing the river by a deep fosse or dry ditch, above which a few traces of wall masonry remain. The unrivalled strategic situation of the rat, above the confluence of the rivers Tay and Tummel and their straths in the very middle of Atholl seem, according to ancient records, to have caused it to be chosen as centre and seat of the Celtic Earls of Atholl of the royal house of Dunkeld. On the forfeitures of these descendants of the Celtic Earls after the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Atholl passed by charter of King Robert the Bruce to Walter the High Steward, and after the Stewarts ascended the throne, the castle on the rath became a favourite royal residence of Robert II and Robert III, con­tinuing to be used as a hunting scat until after the reign ofJamcs III, when it fell into disuse and became the hanging knoll of the Court of Regality. In i866 the inhabitants of Atholl and numerous friends erected on the site a tall Celtic Cross, elaborately carved, in memory of George, 6th Duke of Atholl. His grandson the late John, 8th Duke, took steps to ensure the preservation of the site for posterity. The farm house by the roadside on the way to Logicrait village was the spot to which the bodies of persons executed on the rath were brought to be handed over to their relatives and is still named dais an deoir, the place of weeping. Adjoining the farmhouse, but now demolished, was the cottage in which Alexander MacKenzie, first Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, was born in 1823, the son of a stone mason. In the churchyard, a stone walled enclosure contains the burial ground of the Stewarts of Ballechin, lineal descendants of Robert IT, known as a race of big boned, strong and brave swordsmen who took part in all the Atholl raids and forays, including the Argylishire raid. They fought with Graham of Glaverhouse at Killiecrankie, under Patrick Stewart, and at Culloden. Within the enclosure are preserved three heavy iron mon safes, relics of the body snatching fears which swept the country in the days of the notorious Dr Knox and Burke and Hare.

The oldest monumental stone in the churchyard, was for long on the burial ground of the Stewart Robertsons of Edradynate but has now been set up securely in the vicinity of the church entrance porch. It is believed to be of Pictish origin. One side is incised with a cross while the other depicts a horseman trampling upon the traditional serpent transfixed by a lance. The stone is the subject of a paper by A. Anderson of Pitlochry published in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol. XII p.561. The names Stewart, Robertson, Reid and Ferguson predominate among the burial grounds in the churchyard. There are many other standing stones in the parish, both single and in groups, including a fine circle at Tynreich, a little north of Ballinluig. The most noteworthy stone, at Dunfallandy, is a slab of old red sandstone five feet high by two feet broad with a cross in high relief and panels with allegorical figures and is regarded as one of the finest of the ancient sculptured stones in Scotland. Parts of Wade’s road from Dunkeld to the north are to be seen on both sides of the present main road in stretches from Ballinluig to Moulincarn. This road was constructed about £738. Moulinearn farmhouse was formerly a famous staging inn and was visited by many famous people including Prince Charles Edward and Queen Victoria, who was offered Atholl brose here. Sir Alex. McKenzie the Canadian explorer died in this inn. Two Wade bridges over the burn here were extensively damaged during a heavy flood in 1951. The old ash tree at Logierait Hotel, mentioned in previous Accounts, and estimated to be some ,ooo years old, still grows strongly, though damaged by many storms. It is said that the last man to be executed at Logierait was hanged from one of its branches. At the main gate of the manse stands a noble lime tree claimed by some to be the largest in Scotland. In front of Ballechin House, now itself demolished, are the shattered ruins of the vast trees that were brought as saplings from Inveraray when the men of Atboll, under Montrose, raided the heart of Argyll.

Although never implemented so far as the erection of Logierait into a burgh was concerned, a charter by King Charles II is extant dated 26 May 1671 in favour of John, Earl of Athol], erecting the town of Logicrait into a Free Burgh of Regality, to be called the Burgh of Logierait, with a weekly market and two free fairs yearly, the Charter ratified by Act of Parliament in 1672. On 20 August of each year, Saint Cedd’s Market ,feiIl-ma-Choede, was held in Logierait and tradition holds that when the market ceased to be held the Saint’s well, in the bank above the road opposite the church, dried up and the prosperity of the village declined.

The Town and Country Pinning Committee of Perth and Kinross Council, in implementation of a government directive have recently named the Tummel Valley, part of which comprises the larger part of the parish of Logierait, a special area of great landscape value, one of five in the county. Logierait lies in the High­land District of Perthshire. One member is returned to the district council, which meets in Ballinluig, and one to the county council.

Population. The population has greatly decreased in the last hundred years. This is in part due to the changes in the bounds of the parish, which have been noted, but even within the parish as it is today there are many signs that the density of population was once much greater. In 1791, there were 200 people living in in Logierait village; to-day, there are only about 6o. All along the hillsides are traces of former dwellings. Tullypowrie and Inver of Tullypowrie were once considerable villages. Desire for a higher standard of life than could be won from the high steep slopes was no doubt the chief cause of this depopulation for there is no sad history of evictions here, as in so many places. In this respect, the Atholl family bears a particularly good name; it is said by the local people that no one was ever evicted from the Atholl lands, a statement which is substantiated by the author of the New Statistical Account of the parish who, writing around 1840 when great areas of the Highlands had been subjected to ruthless clearances, states that ‘the change in the agricultural system pursued by the landlords has not been so great as to make any difference observable in the number of the rural population in the parish,’ and that ‘the remedy I should hope in part be left to themselves, as I observe in this class a growing anxiety to educate their children, and to send them from home for improvement and employment — a practice which in many individual cases has resulted in raising their children far above the depressing circumstances in which they began life.’ This gradual evolution of the movement of the population continued during the century but it appears probable that there will be no further decrease in population, unless a reversal of the wise agricultural policy of post-war Governments reduced the farming community once more to the dire conditions of the 1930s. The population was at its maximum in 1831 when there were 3,138 inhabitants. In 18?? it had fallen to 2,875.