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Blair Atholl Village
Blair Atholl is the largest village in the area being
bounded on the south side by the River Garry and bisected
by its tributary, the southerly flowing River Tilt.
The area of the village on the left bank of the River
Tilt is known as Bridge of Tilt.
Until 1822 the military road from Dunkeld to Inverness
ran from the Craggan corner below Lude House and then
by Kilmaveonaig to Old Blair. The new bridge across
the River Tilt on the current line of road was opened
on 16 September 1822, so that Blair Town (now Old
Blair) was bypassed. At that time also, the haugh
(low-lying area) of Blair Atholl contained little
other than the corn mill, its associated farm and
buildings
About the same time, the McInroy laird
of Lude moved his villagers from the old village at
Kilmaveonaig Church down to Ballentoul and by 1823
the duke’s factor, Fred Graham, wrote that Mr
McInroy had contracted to build an inn near the new
Bridge of Tilt, and inferred that the duke might consider
it unnecessary to build a new one of his own in Blair.
However, the duke was not to be outdone by his neighbour
and in 1830 laid the foundation stone for a new inn
- at that time a small coaching inn beside the new
road. It was completed in 1832 and the former inn,
“Tigh Glas” in [Old] Blair Town closed
down. The central part of today’s Atholl Arms
Hotel formed the inn at that time and contained a
dining room, some bedrooms and offices, along with
stabling, coaching facilities and servants’
quarters at the rear.
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In 1825 the building of the present
Blair Atholl parish church was completed beside the
new road and in 1833 a new school and schoolhouse
were built beside the River Tilt where the Atholl
Country Life Museum is now housed. Also in the 1850s
Lude Estate granted a feu to build St Andrews Free
Church [now demolished] by the present Blair Atholl
manse. In 1854 considerable additions were made to
the Atholl Arms, when an east wing, now containing
a lounge bar, was built on. A baronial style dining
room was part of an added west wing, to be used for
the Atholl Gathering Ball which had formerly been
held in a marquee. Further stabling, coach houses
and servants’ quarters were extended at the
back to service the considerably enlarged inn. These
additions were finished in 1877 when further building
at the rear formed a rectangle and completed the courtyard.
Also in the 1850s there was an expansion
of further building in the village, when plans for
“Cottages in Blair” were drawn up, comprising
of a row of substantial stone houses, with shops,
a police station and a post office. At the same time
a smiddy was built beside the mill lade. In 1856 the
building of a row of houses at Garryside, close to
the river, was begun.
A hundred yards below the old ford,
a footbridge across the Garry was completed in the
early 1860s. This replaced the three-arched stone
bridge which was built in 1737 and destroyed six months
later by a severe flood. The remains of a buttress
of this bridge can still be seen on the south bank
on the down side of the footbridge.
Proposals for building a railway line
from Perth to Inverness were first mooted in 1845,
but a parliamentary bill to this end was thrown out
as it was considered impossible for steam locomotives
to haul trains over Drumochter Pass. By 1863, however,
these problems had been overcome and the Perth and
Inverness Junction Railway Company, later the Highland
Railway Company opened the line for railway traffic
in 1863.
In 1871 a gas works was built in the
village a few hundred yards east of the corn mill
and within a year the castle was lit throughout by
gas. This was extended to both the church and school
in the late 1890s.
In the late 20th century the road
to the north, now called the A9, was again re-routed,
this time on a line running from south of Blair Atholl
along the other bank of the river Garry to Bruar,
thus by-passing Blair Atholl completely. Contrary
to many fears, this bypassing has improved the quality
of life and made the village a more pleasant place,
having been freed from the passage of thundering through
traffic.
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