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ROUTE 4

Comrie: Deil’s Caldron

Start/finish	Field of Refuge car park, at south end of Comrie’s bridge over Water of Ruchill NN773218 (or other car parks in Comrie)
Distance	6km/3.5 miles
Ascent	250m/800ft
Approx time	2hr
Max altitude	Lord Melville’s Monument 250m
Terrain	Well-used paths

Various Perthshire villages have marked and maintained paths offering gentle walks in beautiful surroundings. This is one of the best, with wooden walkways above the Deil’s Caldron waterfall, and a viewpoint monument to a dodgy politician. There’s also a healing spring, a quiet riverbank, and the pretty village itself.

Start across the river, turning left on the main street past the white church (now community centre). The street bends right, past another car park (School Lane). At the next bend, keep ahead into Monument Road, and in 100 metres turn right at a footpath signpost for Deil’s Caldron.

The wide earth path runs around the foot of woods, then above River Lednock. Look out for a side path down right to Little Caldron, rejoining the main path above. As the wood steepens, the path runs just below the Glen Lednock road, then drops again along a wooden walkway. Turn down right to a viewing balcony above the Deil’s Caldron waterfall.

Return up wooden steps, forking right to regain the main path. It runs up to the Glen Lednock road. Turn right alongside the road, then left at a signpost onto a steep earth path through a plantation. It zigzags through pleasanter woods above, then contours left, to level ground.

Here note a path arriving from the right, but keep ahead, with a footpath sign. The path zigzags up the final rise to Lord Melville’s Monument.

The path to the Deil’s Caldron

Lord Melville was a minister in Pitt the Younger’s government of 1791, where his skilled political fixing delayed for 15 years the abolition of the slave trade. As war minister at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, he mismanaged the Flanders Campaign and bungled the siege of Dunkirk. In 1806 he was impeached in the House of Lords for embezzling public funds, but acquitted as negligent rather than actually criminal. An even bigger monument to him stands in St Andrews Square, Edinburgh.

Return down the first zigzags, then bear left on the path (previously noted) running northwest along the ridge top under tall trees. It emerges at a smoothly bulldozed track (the Maam Road). Turn down right, signposted ‘Monument Road’.

The track slants left to a bend below a small crag. Here keep ahead for a few steps to the ‘Kinkhoast Well’, a small spring equipped with a pewter mug. Its waters are good against the ‘hoast’ or whooping cough, and according to local legend also for all other difficulties from poor performance in school to dreary Sunday sermons. Continue down the track until it bends back left. Here take a bracken path downhill, to a stile onto the Glen Lednock road. Head right for a few steps, then left at a signpost for Laggan Wood. The wide earth path leads to the riverside at Shaky Bridge. A ‘shoogle on the brig’ (‘a shaking on the bridge’) was cure for any indispositions not covered by the Kinkhoast Well. (Alas, since rebuilding by the Royal Engineers, the bridge is as firm as the Millennium Footbridge in London.) The path turns downstream, then slants up left with a few wooden steps to the top corner of Laggan Wood. Here it’s joined by a right-of-way path from the left. Follow the clear path ahead, with the plantation becoming an attractive oakwood.

After 800 metres, at a waymark post, take a side path to the right. It passes a viewpoint on the left (the view currently obstructed by trees), then descends steep wooden steps towards the river. The path runs to the left, to a bend in a smooth, gravelled all-abilities path (the Lednock Millennium Footpath). Fork down right, soon zigzagging down to picnic tables at the riverside. The path continues downstream, to emerge near a car park at the edge of Comrie.

Turn right, away from the car park, onto a footbridge over the river. In another 150 metres, turn left down Nurses Lane to Comrie’s main street. Cross to the right into Manse Lane, down to the riverside. Turn right, to pass under Dalginross Bridge, then turn up onto the roadway above.

Cross Water of Ruchill to the car park.