Acharn, Perth and Kinross
Encyclopedia
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
council area of Perth and Kinross
Perth and Kinross
Perth and Kinross is one of 32 council areas in Scotland, and a Lieutenancy Area. It borders onto the Aberdeenshire, Angus, Dundee City, Fife, Clackmannanshire, Stirling, Argyll and Bute and Highland council areas. Perth is the administrative centre...
. It is situated on the south shore of Loch Tay
Loch Tay
Loch Tay is a freshwater loch in the central highlands of Scotland, in the district of Perthshire.It is a long narrow loch of around 14 miles long, and typically around 1 to 1½ miles wide, following the line of the valley from the south west to north east...
close to its eastern end. The hamlet was built in the early 19th century to house workers from the surrounding estates. A mill was constructed to harness the power of the nearby Acharn Burn, and this was converted into a craft centre in the 1970s but is not one anymore. There is a bridge in the middle that goes over the Acharn burn.
The Falls of Acharn
Falls of Acharn
Falls of Acharn is a waterfall of Scotland.-References:...
, a series of waterfalls with a total height of 24.5 metres (80 ft) set in a steep wooded gorge, are a popular tourist attraction on the nearby Acharn Burn south of the hamlet, which is a dangerous place to walk dogs without leads.
The Archarn Falls Walk is about 1 mile straight up and down from the village.
This walk has fabulous views of the falls above the village of Acharn, which is a short distance from the Scottish Crannog Centre on the south of Loch Tay Road, just outside the village of Kenmore. The upper falls have a timber walkway constructed by the Officers and men of the 202 Field Squadron RE (V) in June 1989. There is also a 'Hermits Cave' possibly constructed by the Victorians as a kind of folly.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
is known to have visited the falls in 1803 with his sister Dorothy
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives...
, who noted in her diary the "very beautiful prospect" available of Loch Tay from the falls.
The 'Scottish Crannog Centre
Crannog
A crannog is typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually built in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters of Scotland and Ireland. Crannogs were used as dwellings over five millennia from the European Neolithic Period, to as late as the 17th/early 18th century although in Scotland,...
' with a reconstructed prehistoric lake dwelling is a short distance to the east at Croft-na-Caber.
The former mill is now a house.