Clunie

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Clunie is a small village in Perthshire, Scotland, about four miles west of Blairgowrie. It sits on the western shore of Loch of Clunie. Nearby, on a small hill, are the ruins of an ancient defensive site dating back to the 9th century, with even older Iron Age finds and nearby Roman-era fortifications. The hill fort was used by Kenneth MacAlpin, Scotland’s first king, as a hunting base in the royal forest of Clunie. English troops later occupied the site after their victory at the Battle of Dunbar during the First War of Scottish Independence.

On a small island in the loch are the remains of Clunie Castle, a tower house once owned by the bishops of Dunkeld. The village parish church dates from 1840 and was designed by Perth architect William Macdonald Mackenzie, replacing an earlier church and adding a new bell tower. In the church grounds is a mausoleum with a romanesque doorway believed to come from a 12th- or 13th-century church. The church is now linked with churches at Kinclaven and Caputh.

In the village park is a cairn-style war memorial, erected in 1946 to honour two locals who died in World War II and nine local soldiers who died in World War I. Clunie village hall, built in 1912, is still used for community events. Clunie is the birthplace of John Macleod, co-recipient of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.