| Aberfeldy | |
| Scottish Gaelic: Obar Pheallaidh | |
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Aberfeldy
Aberfeldy shown within Perth and Kinross |
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| Population | 1,895 [1] (2001 census) est. 1,940[2] (2006) |
|---|---|
| OS grid reference | NN865496 |
| Council area | Perth and Kinross |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | ABERFELDY |
| Postcode district | PH15 2xx |
| Dialling code | 01887 |
| Police | Tayside |
| Fire | Tayside |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| EU Parliament | Scotland |
| List of places: UK • Scotland • | |
Aberfeldy (Scottish Gaelic: Obar Pheallaidh) is a burgh in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, on the River Tay.[3] A small market town, Aberfeldy is located in Highland Perthshire and houses a population of about 1,895, as of the 2001 census. It is also mentioned in a well-known poem by Robert Burns.
Beyond its association with Burns, who mentioned Aberfeldy in his poem The Birks of Aberfeldy, the town is known for "Wade's Bridge", built in 1733 and designed by architect William Adam, father of the more famous Robert Adam. General Wade considered this bridge to be his greatest accomplishment. Aberfeldy is also mentioned in the traditional Loch Tay Boat Song.
The town also includes a memorial to the Black Watch, an 18-hole golf course, a children's park, and a town square that features stores, restaurants and art galleries. In 2002, Aberfeldy was granted Fairtrade Town status, which was renewed by the Fairtrade Foundation on 15 December 2003.
The Aberfeldy Footbridge over the River Tay was the world's first bridge constructed entirely of composite materials. It connects two holes of the town's golf course on either side of the River Tay.
Breadalbane Cricket Club, founded in 1869, play home matches at Victoria Park in Aberfeldy. The team are the Perthshire Cup Winners for 2007 and 2008, and Strathmore Cricket Union Division One Champions in 2006 and 2008.
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Aberfeldy is situated in the Tay Valley on the upper reaches of the River Tay, which begins up-valley from Aberfeldy at Loch Tay and carries on south and east from Aberfeldy until it discharges at its estuary east of Perth at the Firth of Tay. Lying in a u-shaped valley common to Scotland's glaciated landscape, the terrain in and around Aberfeldy is gently undulating. Farming and agriculture border the town in the valley's floor. Areas further outside of Aberfeldy (particularly to the north and west) give way to the extensive Grampian Mountains, with scenic peaks such as Creag Odhar, Farragon (780m), Schiehallion (1083m), Ben Lawers (1214m) and Sron Mhor punctuating the landscape.
Aberfeldy lies at the intersection of two A roads, the A826 to Crieff and the A827, which leads east and south towards the main A9 trunk road. Aberfeldy is easily reached from southern locations by taking the A9 to the Ballinluig exit, then the A827 to get to the town. Owing to its location off the A9 trunk road, Aberfeldy is less geared toward tourists than its cousin Pitlochry.
The entrance to the Birks of Aberfeldy – a well known gorge and scenic walk – lies on the southern outskirts of Aberfeldy on the A826. The Birks is classified as a "Site of Special Scientific Interest" and contains many varieties of flora and fauna, some of which are protected. Glen Lyon, widely regarded as one of Scotland's most stunning and least-visited valleys, lies about 8 kilometers from the outskirts of Aberfeldy. Evidence of fort construction by Roman legions several thousand years ago exists to this day, further evidence of the region's historical as well as geographical relevance.[4] At the mouth of Glen Lyon lies the village of Fortingall, legendary birth place of Pontius Pilate and home to the Fortingall Yew Tree, reputed to be more than 5,000 years old (though recent research suggests its age to be closer to 2,000).
Aberfeldy has a brand new primary and secondary school called Breadalbane Academy that opened in December 2010.[5] Breadalbane Academy has a wide catchment area throughout Perthshire, including areas such as Killin, Acharn, Kenmore, Dunkeld, Birnam, Bankfoot and Pitlochry. At one time secondary pupils from remoter areas stayed in school hostels in Aberfeldy, but with better roads and depopulation of many remote areas, the hostels were closed at the end of the 20th century. A new school building was erected for opening at the end of 2010 [6]
Aberfeldy Parish Church meets in the former Breadalbane Church building in Taybridge Road, which was the first new building of the Free Church after the Disruption in 1843. It reunited with the former parish church, St Andrew's in Crieff Road, built in 1884, and for a while was used as halls for the united congregation, until 2005 when the Crieff Road building was closed and a modern interior and suite of halls was added to the Taybridge Road building, providing excellent facilities for adult and youth work. There is also a Roman Catholic Church in Home Street. The buildings formerly used as Congregational, Free, and Episcopal churches are now all used for other purposes.
Aberfeldy does not have a theatre or a music hall. The nearest venues are the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the Perth Theatre or the Perth Concert Hall. The new Community School will have an auditorium though. Neither is there a cinema in Aberfeldy. The Birks Cinema, built in the very heart of the town in 1939 in a late Art Deco style, closed in the early 1980s for lack of business. It then turned into an amusement hall, for which purpose the entire interior was demolished. The amusement hall closed in 2004 and the building stands as an empty shell ever since. In 2009 it was bought by the "Friends of the Birks" with a grant from the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Regeneration Fund. It is hoped that enough money can be raised to reopen it as a new 92-seat cinema and café-bar.[7] The patron of the project is the actor Alan Cumming, who was born in the town.[8]
Aberfeldy is the location of the poem "The Birks of Aberfeldy" by Robert Burns:
- Bonie lassie, will ye go,
- Will ye go, will ye go,
- Bonie lassie, will ye go
- To the birks of Aberfeldy!
- Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,
- And o'er the crystal streamlets plays;
- Come let us spend the lightsome days,
- In the birks of Aberfeldy!
In 2001, the author JK Rowling purchased the nearby 19th-century Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay.[9]
The Precambrian Dalradian geological formations in the Highlands north of Aberfeldy contain substantial deposits of the mineral baryte, which is mostly used as a weighting agent for drilling fluids to prevent blow-outs in oil and gas exploration wells. There are three locations with exploitable quantities of it. The Foss Mine, some 4 miles NW of Aberfeldy at has been operational since 1984 and production averages 50,000 tonnes per annum.[10] So far some 525,000 tonnes have been extracted there by M-I SWACO. In 1990, a locally based company began opencast extraction near the summit of Ben Eagach, 4 miles due north of Aberfeldy.[11] Approximately 25,000 tonnes were mined from a series of small pits which have now been abandoned.[12]
The largest formation, containing a 7.5 million ton reserve is at Duntanlich, some 6 miles due north of Aberfeldy, just south of the shores of Loch Tummel. In 1994 an application by MI Great Britain Ltd to mine the deposits was turned down.[13] In 2000, M I Drilling Fluids UK unfolded new plans to establish a supermine at Duntanlich to take six million tonnes from the deposit over the next 30 years) and began preliminary talks with Perth & Kinross Council and Scottish Natural Heritage. However the site is in plain view from the Queen's View on the northern side of Loch Tummel and the weighing of economic and job considerations against conservation and planning concerns and the interests of the tourism sector has so far prevented a decision on exploitation.[14]