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Aberfeldy - History

A collection of highland gaelic-speaking "ferm touns" dotted along the Moness Burn was first recognisable and termed as Aberfeldy or Abair Pheallaigh (mouth of the Pheallaich Burn) in the mid 18th Century. It is perhaps unfortunate that the town has been best remembered in a poem song by Robert Burns (fine as the song may be), 'The Birks of AberFeldy". Aberfeldy, as it happens, has no or very few birks (or birch trees) - Burns may have confused Aberfeldy with some other town! However, the Birks, with its three waterfalls and fine array of indigenous plant and animal life, makes for a beautiful afternoon's walking. The Black Watch the most senior of today's Scottish Regiments, was raised in 1739/40 in what is now Aberfeldy, right by where the Tay bridge now stands. When the English General George Wade built his great bridge over the Tay between 1733-35, it signalled not only the end of a massive and lengthy period of road construction into the forests and mountains of the Highlands, but severely disadvantaged Highland fighting men who looked to the land for military advantage. The bridge is 400 feet in length, with five arches and stands testament to the work of George Wade and the brilliance of the Scots architect William Adam, commissioned for its blue-print. © Scottish Towns