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| Towns | History - Comrie |
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In 79AD when Julius Agricola built one of his Highland forts on the outskirts of Comrie, he would not have been swayed by the unquestionable scenic beauty of the area, but its strategic position. Although the Romans called it Victoria, its original Pictish name is said to have been Aberlednock until the ascendancy of the Gaelic-speaking Scots from Ireland resulted in today's name of Comrie, derived from the Gaelic 'conruith' meaning 'confluence of streams'. Those streams, or rivers, flow through deep glens and it was to protect Roman-occupied southern Scotland from Caledonian attacks through the glens that Agricola built his fort at Comrie. From the north the River Lednock tumbles down through the wild and diverse beauty of Glen Lednock; from the south flows the Water of Ruchill from Glenartney, favourite hunting forest of Scottish Kings and beloved by Sir Walter Scott. Completing the trio is the River Earn itself which, over the millennia, has carved - with the help of the receding ice cap - a narrow path through the hills from its source in Loch Earn five miles to the west. Of the Roman occupation nothing remains except the outlines of their settlements on aerial photographs. The 23.5 acre marching camp lies astride the B827 road, just on the edge of Dalginross - a 'suburb' of Comrie. Whilst Agricola and his legions left no tangible remains, earlier inhabitants of the area certainly did. The surrounding countryside contains a wealth of standing stones, stone circles, hill forts and ancient burial mounds covering a period from 3000BC to 80AD. Many of these are in and around Comrie and are marked on the Ordnance Survey Pathfinder map for the locality. By the third century AD when the Romans finally withdrew from Scotland, the Picts were a powerful force in the north and this area was part of the Pictish province of Fortrui with a large stronghold at Dundurn Hill near St. Fillans, four miles to the west. 
Over the following centuries the area became one of the greatest Celtic Earldoms in Scotland and was home to many of the powerful families in the country. During the middle ages, Comrie does not feature large in documented history and appears to have been a quiet agricultural settlement with its kirk and a handful of small cottages. It is known that Comrie suffered badly in 1645 when 'plague and pestilence' swept through the strath. Smallpox also took its toll up until the 1790s when, what we erroneously tend to regard as a modern invention, innoculation, was introduced.
By 1796 Comrie had expanded with the influx of dispossessed crofters and had a distillery and two breweries. Flax was cultivated and the staple manufactures were tartans, blankets and linen yarn. The importance of weaving at the time is evidenced by a weavers' society of over 200 members.
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