Lochearnhead - Development of Communications

Development of Communications

Like many highland communities, until the coming of the military road, Lochearnhead consisted of little more than a scattered collection of cottages, crofts, and the more prosperous farms associated with the estates. The first part of the old Lochearnhead Hotel was built in 1746, taking advantage of the improving communications. Before that, the area had been served by the much smaller and more primitive Lochearnhead Old Inn, which stood opposite where the village shop is now, and whose ruins were still in evidence until they were demolished in the 1980s, due to their dangerous condition.

The military road was built in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellions, and its coming, along with the hotel, gave focus to the village centre, until then little more than a few houses at the junction between the old roads that ran along the routes of the current A84 and A85. One of the original drove routes south ran down Glen Ogle and along the northern side of Loch Earn to Crieff. When the market was switched to Falkirk in around 1700, the main route ran south from Lochearnhead.

A minute of the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, dated 3 April 1714, sets aside monies for the founding of a school at Lochearnhead. This is the old school, now a dwelling, which stands on the roadside by what was known as the Loanie, a track running beside the old Raven’s Croft. The Loanie was blocked off when the houses comprising what is now Ravenscroft Road were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1750, work began on the military road from Stirling to Fort William. This ran by Callander, Lochearnhead and Tyndrum and when it was completed, the village rose in prominence. A Post Office was opened in 1800.

According to the Minute Book of the Deacons Court of the Free Church, between the founding of the Free Church of Scotland, as a result of the Disruption of 1843, and the starting of the minute book in 1846, Lochearnhead had a Free Church, a Church School and a Manse. The church passed back to the Church of Scotland after the reunion of 1929, and fell out of use in the 1970s. It is now a dwelling house. The Manse is now the Mansewood Country House Hotel. The school referred to is the current school, situated on School Lane, behind the village hall.

It was the coming of the railways that had the greatest effect on the village. In 1870, the Callander and Oban Railway, was completed and in 1904 the railway was extended along Loch Earn to St. Fillans and Crieff, making Lochearnhead an easy place to visit (while the railway junction was actually at Balquhidder, 3 km to the south, until the opening of Lochearnhead station on the new line, Balquhidder station was called Lochearnhead). With the rise in Scottish tourism in Victorian times, the town became a popular destination from which tourists could enjoy the tranquility of Loch Earn. A number of small hotels were built around 1900. A motor vessel, the Queen of Loch Earn, plied the loch from 1922 until 1936, after which she was moored at St Fillans and used as a houseboat. The railways were short-lived and with the rise of motor transport, the St Fillans rail line closed in 1951. Although Beeching cuts included for the closure of the main line in 1965, it was actually closed because of landslides in Glen Ogle shortly before the planned closure date. The rockfall can still be seen above and below the railway line.

August 2004 saw more landslides, this time across the glen from railway line. The road was engulfed in mud, after unusually heavy and prolonged rain, trapping several motorists, and bringing the attention of the national and international media as the world debated climate change and "wild weather".