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ROUTE 7

Crieff, its Knock, and River Earn

Start/finish	Car park at Turret Bridge, east side, marked MacRosty Park NN857222
Distance	13km/8 miles
Ascent	400m/1400ft
Approx time	4hr
Max altitude	Knock of Crieff 279m
Terrain	Paths and tracks, partly waymarked

The walk of Knock Hill alone is 7.5km with 250m ascent (4.5 miles/900ft) – about 2½hr. For shorter Knock Hill walks start at the Knock End car park (NN864225).

The walk of Laggan Hill and River Earn is 6.5km with 100m ascent (4 miles/300ft) – about 2hr.

Crieff: the noise of heavy traffic, dangerous with its young ruffians and hoodies, stinking and squalid. That’s in the 17th century, when the traffic was cattle from the whole of the Highlands, the ‘hoodies’ actually wore the blue bonnets of the Gaelic drovers, and the streets were ankle deep in dung. Today, on the other hand, it’s a gently elegant country town. The traditional welcome to mountain men continues, with a fine set of eating places (including a surprising Islamic takeaway).

For a first view of the hills of the Highlands, or for sheltered exercise on a foul stormy day, the town has marked walks of woodland, field and river. If you only have a few moments to spare, spend them on the 1km and 77m ascent to the Knock of Crieff – Marilyn-baggers note that the true summit is in a gloomy plantation 1km further along the ridge. The route described here links five of the town walks, two small hills, a fine riverside, and alcoholic intoxication at the Glenturret Distillery.

Start behind the car park, to head north (upstream) on the inland edge of the park, then turn right up a long series of steps. You pass a ‘caleidogira’, a landscape-fracturing kaleidoscope. Turn right along the park top for 200 metres, passing the Tuckie Café hut, to exit onto the road above.

Crieff from Laggan Hill

Turn right for 50 metres and then back left, up Craigard Road. At its top keep ahead into unsurfaced Ancaster Road. Before reaching the Crieff Hydro, turn left up an earth path, to a kissing-gate signposted for The Knock. Continue up the path to another gate into a housing estate. Turn left (waymark arrow ‘The Hosh Walk’) to a road above. The small Knock End car park (my unofficial name) is just to your right.

‘Hydro’ comes from hydropathic, a late 18th-century form of complementary medicine involving drinking nasty water. Today the hotel offers a rich variety of active fun from archery to Zumba (which is leaping up and down to Latin rhythms), also afternoon teas.

Cross the road to a signpost ‘Knock Summit’. Take the wide path uphill. Somewhere hereabouts is the Cradle Stone, a dolerite erratic on the conglomerate of the hill. The path reaches a viewpoint table surrounded by benches at the 244m ‘summit’.

Continue on a wide path past the viewpointer, northeast as before, descending to a crossing path. Keep ahead, to pass through a stile into replanted brushwood. A path leads across it to a similar stile. A rough path continues uphill, into a gloomy plantation, where some conglomerate bedrock is exposed. The path passes a sprawly little cairn at the true summit of Knock Hill, then descends. Bear left on an earth track to the edge of trees, where you meet a wide, smooth timber track.

Turn right on this, between felled areas. The track descends to a sharp bend down right. Here turn left into a wide fenced path, to a deer fence at the edge of the brushwood. Pass through a high kissing-gate, and turn right to the top of Kate McNieven’s Craig. The crag is conglomerate (puddingstone) of the Old Red Sandstone, which makes the Knock a hill of the northernmost edge of the Scottish Lowlands. Look out for buzzards here.

Return to the kissing-gate but don’t go through it. Turn right along the outside of the deer fence, heading back west, with views across Shaggie Burn to Monzie Castle and the Highlands. The path descends alongside the forest edge. After 800 metres, the path passes through a kissing-gate into the woodland. In a few metres, fork right on the lower path close to the woodland foot, soon with Crieff Hydro’s golf course below.

After 800 metres the path rises a little, to join a wider path above. Keep ahead down this, to pass above a car park overlooking the golf course. This car park has a viewpoint indicator in it. If you keep on ahead above the car park onto the tarmac lane, the Knock End car park is reached in another few hundred metres. (The circuit from that car park is about 2hr.)

Turn down through the car park to steps marked ‘Celebration Woodland’. A fenced path leads down into a field assigned to woodland. Go down through a gate onto the golf course, and turn left to a tarmac lane. Turn right down this, past various outdoor Experiences and Centres of the Crieff Hydro.

Just past the golf clubhouse, as the lane bends left, keep ahead into a dirt track signposted for Glenturret Distillery (aka the Famous Grouse Experience). It leads down into woodland, to a three-way signpost.

‘Knock Only’ option

Turn left at this signpost, marked ‘Comrie Road’. The broad earth path soon reaches River Turret. This is ‘Lovers’ Walk’, and romantic even for booted hillwalkers, downstream in riverside woods. On reaching A85 (Comrie Road) cross and turn left, to a signpost into MacRosty Park marked ‘Turret Bridge’. Follow this path above River Turret, then ahead through the riverside park to the walk start.

For the full-length walk, follow the main track down to the right, marked ‘Hoff’, to its ford of Shaggie Burn – there’s a footbridge alongside. The track leads out to the Monzie lane.

Turn down left, to cross Shaggie Burn on the road bridge, with Glenturret Distillery just ahead. At once turn right, signposted for Comrie Road, through old iron gates marked ‘Strictly No Dogs’. The track runs up under trees. In open field, take a kissing-gate on the left marked with a blue waymark as the Currochs Path. Pass left around the field edge, along the top of wooded banking above the distillery and the Glenturret lane. At the next field, take a kissing-gate to pass along the field-edge fence, then down under trees to a track. Turn left down this to join the very foot of the Glenturret lane.

Turn right across the A85 into Turretbank Road. After 300 metres, just before a street on the right, a grassy path is signposted for Laggan Hill. The shorter Laggan Hill and Earn walk joins at this point.

Laggan Hill and Earn option

From MacRosty Park car park cross the river on a footbridge just upstream from the road bridge. (This footbridge has wooden parapets, and circular holes as if gnawed by a river serpent.)

Turn right on earth path for 200 metres upstream; then fork left up a steep earth path to a street (Turretbank Road) just above. Turn right on pavement, to pass the end of Turretbank Drive, continue for 300 metres, and find Turretbank Drive arriving again from the left. Immediately beyond this junction, a footpath signpost points left for Laggan Hill.

Whichever way you arrived here, you now take the signed path runs west to a gate into open field. A faint path heads up west to the field top hedge. Turn right along this, northwest. Before Currochs farm, take a gate on the left onto a track, follow this down briefly towards the farm, then turn left up a green track.

River Earn from Lady Mary’s Walk

This runs up southwest, partly overgrown, then into a hilltop wood. Here it bends down left to join a wider earth track at a signpost. Left at this point is a shorter return to Crieff. Turn right, signed for Laggan Hill.

The track runs through the woods of Laggan Hill, then descends bending gradually left with a wall to its right. After a brief rise, take a kissing-gate on the left signposted for Laggan Road. This path winds downhill, with views to Torlum Hill, to meet a wide earth track. Turn right for 50 metres, then left on wide path signposted for Crieff by Lady Mary’s Walk.

The path soon reaches River Earn and turns downstream. After 1.5km, at a signpost, the track bends up left away from the river, but fork right on a small riverside path. This soon bends left, to run upstream to left of Turret Burn. It emerges at the road bridge to MacRosty Park.