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Road from Powmill to Cleish—AIdie Castle and its traditions —Ancient
connection of the Athole family with Fossoway —Blairingone— The "Monk's
Grave".
In a previous chapter, the
traveller, after journeying from Dunfermline and coming, at the farm of
Meadow-head, within sight of Aldie Castle and the entrance to the valley of
Cleish, was made somewhat unceremoniously to retrace his steps and proceed
by a branch road from Hill End to Saline. We shall now resume again the
journey to the Rumbling Bridge at the point then abandoned, and thus link
together the different scenes through which we have passed.
Leaving Meadowhead on our
right, we continue to descend the hill past Pow Lodge; and then at the
bottom, after crossing a flat tract of marsh-land, we ascend again to the
hamlet of Pow Mill, where a road on the left branches off to Blairingone and
Alloa. We now proceed downhill to the bridge which crosses here the Pow, as
the lower course of the West Gairney is called, and then again ascending a
steep acclivity, we find a road on the right leading along the Aldie ridge
to Cleish. Here we are within a mile of the Rumbling Bridge, and not much
farther from the Crook of Devon, the road to which, as already mentioned,
branches off from the present one near the railway station.
Let us now follow the upper
road to Cleish. Having travelled along it about a mile and a half, we pass
on our left the rising ground of Carleith, on which used to be the ruins of
a circular building, about 24 feet in diameter. In the end of the last
century the ground where it stands was planted, and the stones of the
ancient edifice were employed in the construction of the enclosing fence. In
the course of the excavations two stone coffins containing human bones were
found near the centre of the structure. It had evidently formed one of those
burial-places of the primeval inhabitants of the district, of which so many
have been discovered in all parts of the British Islands.
Proceeding a little farther
east from Carleith, a road on the right leads down to the parks of Aldie and
Aldie Castle, the ancient patrimony of the Mercers, and now the inheritance
of the Dowager-Marchioness of Lansdowne, whose maternal grandmother, Miss
Mercer, as heiress of Aldie, conveyed the estate to the Elphinstone family
by her marriage with Lord Keith of Tulliallan. The old castle, though not
absolutely a ruin, is still in a very dilapidated state, and has not been
inhabited for a long period. It stands on an eminence overlooking the Cleish
valley, and consists of a keep flanked at the upper corners with turrets,
whilst attached to it in front is a house of more recent construction. A
little to the east, on the castle green, is a holly-tree, regarding which an
old legend states that a groom was hanged on it for the comparatively venial
offence of "stealing a caup [measure] of corn." Before being turned off he
invoked a malison on the Mercer family that they should never have a son to
inherit the property—a prophecy which has certainly held good for several
generations.
Another tradition connected
with Aldie is that of a famous witch, known as "Meg of Aldie," but of whose
history, whether real or mythical, almost nothing seems to be preserved. She
is said to have taken a great interest in a Laird of Aldie, who made an
expedition to the Holy Land with the special purpose of effecting in
addition the ascent of Mount Sinai. Some hazy memory is perhaps here
preserved of the Murrays of Tullibardine, the ancient lords of Fossoway,
having taken part in the Crusades. Meg is said, according to some accounts,
to have accompanied her chief, but used her powers to prevent the fulfilment
of his vow as regarded the ascent of the holy mount. Awaking one morning—so
says the tale—the Laird of Aldie found written on his arm :—
" The Laird of Aldie you may
be,
But the top of Mount Sinai you'll never see."
And so he never did, though
he returned safe and sound to his native land.
Aldie Castle is said to have
been built in the sixteenth century. If this date is correct, it probably
refers to the erection of the southern and more recent portion. It is
ascertained that in 1475 Isabella Wardlaw of Torrie, the wife apparently of
Laurence Mercer of Meikleour, and assuredly the mother of Henry Mercer, was
infeft in the lands of "Estirawdeis" and "esterawdeis," the lands of Powmill
and others. The common story is, that the Aldie estate came into the
possession of William Mercer of Meikleour by his marriage with the heiress,
the beautiful Aldia Murray, of the Tullibardine family, from whom, moreover,
it is said that the property received its appellation. This is, however, a
questionable assertion, as it is much more likely that the name Aldie is of
Celtic origin. It has been derived by Colonel Robertson from allt dubh (the
dark stream)—a not unlikely origin, as the Pow flows through the valley in
front of the castle.
The following not very
complimentary rhyme used to be current regarding Aldie and its neighbourhood
:—
"Hard heads in Hardiston,
Quakers in the Pow;
The braw Aldie lasses Cauna spin their tow."
At the east extremity of the
castle slope is the old garden, now employed as a nursery of young trees. It
contains two very old specimens of the oriental or real plane, which casts
its bark every month. As is well known, what is ordinarily called in this
country the plane is in reality the sycamore. From the woodland path which
leads by the garden, the Cleish road may again be reached by proceeding
north-east across the fields. Opposite the road by which we diverged to
visit Aldie Castle, a path leads across the country in a northerly direction
to the railway station at the Crook of Devon. Continuing about a mile and a
half farther east on our original course, we see on our left the grounds of
Tulliebole, and soon afterwards reach the eastern extremity of the parish of
Fossoway, where it meets those of Cleish and Kinross. Here are the lands of
Coldrain, belonging to the ancient barony of that name, formerly possessed,
with the rest of Fossoway, by the progenitors of the Athole family. A little
to the south of Wood of Coldrain farm is a square enclosure known as " Hall
Yard," and extending to a little more than an imperial acre. It is
surrounded by a ditch, and had contained at one time a castle, said
traditionally to have been a hunting-seat of the Murrays.
Tullibardine, the ancient 'nheritancc
of the Murrays, from which the Athole family takes its secondary title, is
situated in the parish of Blackford, on the north side of the Oehils; and
the ruins of the castle which they inhabited are still to be seen in
Tullibardine Moor. The lands and barony of Tullibardine, including Pitvar,
Solsgirth, Blairingone, &c., seem to have been adjudged or apprised in 1545
from William Murray, and made over to Cardinal David Beaton of St Andrews.
He had borrowed jQ2800 from the Cardinal, and had a right of reversion
provided the money were paid within seven years. The Murrays were the
leading family in this part of Scotland, and owned nearly the whole of the
present parish of Fossoway. At Blairingone, on the left-hand side of the
road in descending from that village to the Vicar's Bridge, they had a
residence, of which till recently some faint traces still remained. Till
1873, moreover, the Dukes of Athole, their descendants, owned the farm of
Dundrummie in this neighbourhood, along with the whole of the so-called
Blairingone coal, which used to be worked to a great extent for the supply
both of the adjoining country and the region of Strathearn, on the other
side of the Ochils. They have, since the date last mentioned, ceased to hold
any property in this district. A lintel-stone belonging to the old castle,
and having a coat-of-arms sculptured upon it, was conveyed away at that time
to Blair Atholl as a relic of the ancestral abode.
One other memory of the
Athole family in Fossoway may be noticed. In going from Powmill by the road
already mentioned as leading west from thence to Blairingone, the traveller,
after proceeding about three-quarters of a mile, will see a pleasant shady
road on his left, which will lead him in a south-westerly direction to an
expanse of moorland interspersed with hillocks and scrub, and termed by the
country-people "the Monk's Grove,"' which is, however, a corruption from
"the Monk's Grave," a locality now obliterated and forgotten, but connected
with a curious legend. In consequence of an act of sacrilege on the part of
a chieftain of the Murrays in setting fire to a church in which a hostile
clan had taken refuge, he had been compelled to make over the lands of
Pethwer, or Pitfar, with others, to the monks of Culross. In after-times a
dispute arose with this convent as to the boundary of the lands which they
thus held. A meeting of the opposing parties took place, when one of the
Culross ecclesiastics gave oath that he was at that moment standing on soil
belonging to Culross Abbey. One of the Murrays, exasperated at what he
considered to he perjury, struck down and slew the monk, on pulling oft*
whose shoes they were found filled with earth from Culross. The fraudulent
churchman was buried where he fell, and his grave was long shown as a
memorial of the occurrence. A quarry which has been opened here has very
probably effaced the burial-mound.
About half a mile due south
from the Monk's Grave, on the slope of the rising ground, is the house of
Pitfar, a modern mans >n. Following the old road over the hill by Barnhill
and Bankhead, Ave emerge at the house of Bumside (Alexander Macleod, Esq.),
a little to the north-west of Saline village, on the old road leading from
thence to Dollar. We are now again in the county of Fife, and which we
crossed to the south of Pitfar separating the parish of Saline from that of
Fossoway, and the county of Fife from that of Perth. At Solsgirth, in the
south-west corner of the parish of Fossoway, where the latter abuts on
Clackmannan, it is popularly said that you may stand with your right foot in
Perthshire and your left in Fife, and then stooping down without shifting
your position, you may rest both of your hands in the county of Clackmannan. |
