Gateway To The Glens:
A Historical Tour Of Glen Clova
Kirriemuir’s romantic sobriquet ‘Gateway to the Glens’ is well deserved. The town stands at the entrance of four beautiful Angus glens - Glenisla, Glenprosen, Glen Clova and Glen Doll. In addition to their wonderful, dramatic scenery, these glens have many a tale to tell. Their history and traditions are etched into the very landscape and whisper to us from the walls of castles and monuments. Our historical tour of discovery takes us from Kirriemuir into Glen Clova to meet some of the folk who lived there in past times.
Inverquharity Castle
We begin, a couple of miles north of Kirriemuir at Inverquharity Castle, which takes its name from the adjacent Quharity burn. Fourteen generations of Ogilvies owned Inverquharity from around 1420. The present building, which has been restored, dates from about 1444, when James II granted a licence to Alexander Ogilvie to build an iron yett (gate). Alexander became embroiled in a dispute with the Earl of Crawford, of Finavon Castle, which culminated in 1445 in the ‘Battle of Arbroath’ lasting two days. Both protagonists were killed, but the Crawfords won the day and Inverquharity’s east wing was destroyed in retaliation for the Earl’s death. The outline of a serving hatch can still be seen low down on the east wall, where it used to open into the kitchen in the vanished east wing. If you look up from the main door, you can see the machiolations from which stones or boiling oil could be poured down on the enemy.
Cortachy Castle
A mile and a half north west of Inverquharity lies Cortachy Castle, a Scottish baronial style mansion remodelled for the eighth Earl of Airlie in 1871 by architect David Bryce. The work was carried out on top of an earlier remodelling of 1820-21, but the first castle on the site probably dated to the 1330s, when the land was owned by the Earls of Strathearn. In 1473, Cortachy was granted to Thomas Ogilvy of Clova by James II. During the Second World War, it was used as a military hospital and subsequently half the building was demolished. The oldest surviving part, the south west tower, dates to the sixteenth century.
Close by is Cortachy Church, which dates from 1828, although there was an earlier church on the site. Near the south-east corner is a flat stone on which can still be seen the outline of a sword and buckler. This is the grave of James Winter, one of the men who, around 1700, fought for McIntosh of Leddenhendrie farm in Glen Lethnot in the Battle of the Saughs, a skirmish to recover cattle stolen by thieves (‘Catterans’) from Braemar.
Burnside Cottage
Further along the road from Cortachy is the village of Dykehead. Here the main road continues right into Glen Clova, but the left hand turning, into Glen Prosen, brings us to Burnside Cottage, a little house with big connections. Here Dr. Wilson, who accompanied Captain Robert Scott on his Antarctic expedition in 1912, wrote his definitive work on diseases of grouse. The cottage belonged to Wilson’s London publisher, Reginald Smith. Scott himself visited, and so, reputedly, did J.M. Barrie, who was a friend of Scott’s.
A mile north west of Dykehead stands Tulloch Hill, crested by the Airlie Monument. This commemorates the eleventh Earl of Airlie, who was killed at the battle of Diamond Hill, near Pretoria, on 11th June 1900. He was an officer in the Prince of Wales Regiment, the 12th Lancers. The Earl’s dying words, as reported by one of his NCOs, were ‘Kindly moderate your language sergeant’. Like the Forfar War Memorial, the monument is a copy of one of the towers in Airlie Castle.
Three and a half miles west of Tulloch Hill lies Cat Law, a hill of 2,200 ft, which for several weeks in 1745 was the hideout of Robert Wedderburn of Pearsie, Sheriff Clerk of Forfarshire. During the Rebellion, Wedderburn raised a company of Clova men for Lord Ogilvy’s Regiment, and after Culloden he helped Ogilvy to escape, thereby becoming a wanted man himself. He later secured a protection warrant from the Lord Justice Clerk and resumed his official duties.
Half a mile along the road from Dykehead lies the hamlet of Cullow, where a market and sheep fair used to be held. In the 1840s between eight and twelve thousand sheep were brought in over Jock’s Road and other drove roads for auction at Cullow on the 4th Monday in October and the last Friday in April. The population in those days was much bigger: in 1755 Cortachy and Clova had 1,233 inhabitants, and in the 1790s the area supported three smiths, four carpenters, three millers, three shopkeepers and ten sellers of strong drink. Today, the population has fallen to around 380.
The land in this area is rough, with scattered boulders and whins; it must have taken much back-breaking labour to create the fields for cultivation. Leaving Cullow behind, the road passes through woodland reminiscent of the old Caledonian forest, on the approach to Cortachy Cemetery.
Three miles further up the glen, the road forks, the right hand fork crossing the river South Esk at Gella bridge, and the left following its western bank, crossing over six miles further upstream at Milton of Clova, to meet the road on the eastern bank. At Milton of Clova, beside the Clova Hotel stands the partially restored meal mill. It was near the hotel, perhaps where the car park now stands, that Lord Ogilvy’s Regiment was disbanded on 21st April 1746. The Regiment had fired two volleys at Culloden before retreating from the field in good order and providing covering fire for many escaping Highlanders. Their retreat took them over the Capel Mounth from Braemar. Lord Ogilvy went into hiding around Loch Brandy and Loch Wharral before escaping by ship from Dundee to Bergen and France.
Across the river, south of Milton of Clova, is Caddam, where Margaret Adamson was burned for witchcraft in 1662 on Witch’s Hillock. The same year, a new inn was built, and, in keeping with superstition, rowan branches were hung over the door and a dog put in through a window for good luck before anyone entered.
From Milton of Clova, a single track road runs a further three miles up the glen, passing the remains of Clova Castle - just the stump of a tower on a low hill. The castle was probably destroyed by raiding Catterans in the 1590s. At the end of the public road lies, on the west, the entrance to Glen Doll, and on the east, the Capel Mounth. This old drove road from Glen Clova to Glen Muick was surveyed in the 1830s with the intention of improving it into a proper road to encourage trade. However, the plan was dropped in favour of a road through Glen Shee.
Loch Brandy
Returning south on the east bank of the river, we pass the hamlet of Rottal. The big white house here was built as a shooting lodge, but in 1675 it was the site of a mill owned by Alexander Lindsay. In 1755 the Clachan of Rottal was recorded as having ‘sixty reekin lums’ (smoking chimneys) for the purposes of taxation - the chimney tax was a precursor of window tax. The community at Rottal grew, prepared and spun flax.
Three miles further south the road crosses the river again at Gella Bridge. In the early nineteenth century there was a commercial fresh water pearl fishery here. In the woods downstream of the bridge is a spot known as The Bride’s Coggie. A sad tale is told of how a bride drowned here in a carriage accident on her wedding day. A ‘coggie’ is a small tub or bowl and probably refers to one of the many stone lined retting ponds used to rot the outer husk off flax plants after harvesting. Because of the appalling stench, they were generally built away from houses.
Close by is the romantically named Nine Maidens’ Well, purportedly called after the nine daughters of St. Donwald, who had a hermitage in Glen Ogil. Others think the name may be derived from the Nine Muses of the Romans.
Glen Prosen
So we reach the end of our tour, heading back to Kirriemuir. Here, in May 2001, a new museum, funded jointly by the European Regional Development Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Enterprise Tayside and Angus Council, will open in the former Town House. The ‘Gateway to the Glens’ Museum will celebrate the history, heritage, culture and environment of Kirriemuir and the Western Angus Glens. Displays, objects, activities and a touch-screen computer will be used to explain the geology, history, archaeology and wildlife of the Glens. A cross section model of Glen Clova will expose its fantastic geology, and a wildlife diorama will display some of the animals to be found there. The museum will be open all year round, and admission is free. We hope that you will take the opportunity to visit and enjoy both the Museum and the Glens themselves.
© Angus Council 1998 - 2008