Rock and Water Circular Walk Distance 1 mile (1.6k) In places, as you walk round, you will see more open areas where moorland plants have survived the shade. Common heather or ling, and the blaeberry No-one can visit the Bruar Water Upper Bridge Picnic Area are both easy to find, while a more careful search will without being impressed by the striking View Point reveal bell-heather, cowberry and the occasional combination of rock and water seen in N juniper bush. Rhododendrons grow beside the path the river, as it tumbles over a series of waterfalls Upper Falls in places and on rocks above the Bruar Water. into Glen Garry. The character of the falls changes Victorians planted much Rhododendron for landscape constantly with the weather, the light or with the enhancement. The variety of habitats provides cover seasons. Sometimes wild and impressive, at other Landslide for many kinds of birds and animals. times more tranquil, the falls are never dull. As Robert Burns wrote:

Here foaming down the skelvy rocks View Point & Site In twisting strength I rin; of View House There high my boiling torrent smokes Wild roaring o’er a linn. Falls of It is the ‘skelvy’ or layered nature of the rock which does much to determine the character of the falls. Remains of Middle Falls View House Bruar These ancient rocks Ð thought to have originally been Pool & Cave marine sediments Ð were uplifted and tilted by the Lower Bridge View Point great forces which created this part of the Scottish Highlands some 500 million years ago. The gorge Lower Falls & Natural Arch B ru and the waterfalls have probably been formed in the ar Wa last 10,000 years since the glaciers disappeared from ter Glen Garry at the end of the last Ice Age. 3. Paths, Bridges and Viewpoints Erosion has sought out the softer layers and weaknesses in the rock, leaving the harder layers to Parking Layby The earliest travellers to visit the form the outcrops and waterfalls in the river bed. In Scottish Highlands would have viewed Bruar places the rocks have been worn smooth by the Inverness Railway 79 the Bruar with real horror. Only as travel Lodge B80 action of the water. One of the best-known features Perth to was made safer by the building of roads and of the falls is seen below the Lower Bridge, where the wan Car Park bridges did travellers begin to view the mountains in a river has broken through the rock to form a natural Pitago Toilets House of Tourist Bruar Centre new light. Places like the Falls of Bruar soon became arch. Information regular stopping places on tours of the Highlands.

Today’s visitor to the falls is able to follow a path B847 leading from the road, and may cross the Bruar by oad A9(T) South ness R Inver Per either of two bridges. Earlier visitors did not have h to th Pert such conveniences, and were obliged to scramble North Inverness over rocks and streams. Alternative Tourist Routes: Key B8079 South The path which you follow was laid out at the time of Path Blair Atholl, Killiecranckie & Pitlochry the first plantations in 1797, and the bridges built to Entry points to path B847 North Calvine, Tummel Bridge & Kinloch Rannoch conduct people safely across the Bruar. They serve no purpose other than that of enabling visitors to appreciate the spectacle of the falls. You may notice Trees and Wildlife that the path runs close to the gorge only where the best views may be obtained. In other places the visitor is led away from less spectacular stretches of To see the Bruar as it was when the first river bank. visitors came in the eighteenth century, we must imagine the scene without trees. At one time a number of shelters were constructed at The river bed was open and exposed, as Burns’ the key view-points along the path. These were poem describes: variously described as view-houses, grottoes, How saucy Phebus’ scorching beams shieldings or pastoral huts. Only part of one of these, In flaming summer pride, built of stone, survives, close to the Lower Bridge. Dry withering waste my foamy streams Here a skilfully contrived stone arch hides the Middle And drink my crystal tide. Falls from view until the last moment. Originally seats and a thatched wooden shelter provided a resting place overlooking the fall. A flight of stone steps led Some early visitors, like William Gilpin in 1776, were down to the pool below. disappointed. He felt the falls to be: The other main view-house stood on a ledge on the Scarce worth so long and perpendicular a walk. east side of the gorge, to give views of the Upper One of them indeed is a grand fall, but is so naked Falls. Few traces of this structure now survive, while in its accompaniments that ... it is of little value. elsewhere on the walk evidence of other view-houses Robert Burns, in his petition to the Duke of Atholl, is difficult to find. Can you tell where they might have asks for the falls to be surrounded with ‘lofty firs and been? ashes cool’ and with ‘fragrant birks in woodbines While some visitors no doubt appreciated the paths drest’, whether to provide shelter for visitors or and shelters constructed by the Duke, others felt that protection for wild creatures. When the first they detracted from the wild character of the falls. plantations were made in the winter of 1796 to 1797, Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, visiting in 1815, they were entirely of European Larch and Scots Pine, complained that: for the Duke had more than just ornament in mind. As he was later to write in his forestry journal: So many summer houses and hermitages and peep-bo places ... had been planted on favourite In my opinion Planting ought to be carried on for View of the situations that the proper character of the wild Beauty, Effect and Profit. Upper Falls torrent was completely lost. In his lifetime ‘Planter John’, as he came to be known, William Wordsworth, visiting in 1803, objected to the The falls are at their most spectacular after heavy planted some 15 million larch trees alone in more Gravel Walks ... brushed neatly without a blade of rain, or during the melting of the snows in spring. than 10,000 acres of plantations on his estates. grass or a weed upon them. Then the Bruar can become a raging torrent, plunging Some of the early visitors disliked the use of these from pool to pool. Much of the time the Bruar is in unfamiliar coniferous trees in place of native The clutter of view-houses has now disappeared, and more tranquil mood, though, as the circuit judge Lord broadleaved species, objecting to the regular pattern Cockburn remarked after a visit to the falls in 1844: time and nature have mellowed the once formal of their growth. paths. The work of the masons and labourers was The ravines through which the water tumbles are well done, however, as we are still able, nearly two so narrow in proportion to the size of the stream centuries later, to enjoy the spectacle of the falls in that there can never be any apparent deficiency of relative comfort and safety. water. It is easy for the works of man to detract from those of Now that water is extracted from the Bruar upstream nature. At Bruar we try to ensure that you can enjoy of the falls, for the generation of hydro-electric power, the falls in their natural state, and without risk. We we are no longer able to see the falls in their full hope you will be tempted to return. glory. At times of lower flow the water is often stained brown by the peat through which it must flow to reach the river. The artist Joseph Farington, who visited the falls in 1801, remarked on the contrast which this Most of the trees were felled during the Second World produced with the surrounding rocks:- War, and later replanted. Only on the steepest slopes and close to the river did the older trees escape the A bridge of light coloured stone crosses the top of woodsman’s axe. Replanting was done with Scots the fall, and the rocks under it are of a very light Pine and Hybrid Larch. Natural regeneration of colour. The deep toned colour of the water native broadleaved trees such as the birch, the rowan opposed to tints approaching to white gave tone or mountain ash, the aspen and the willow brings and substance to the effect which white water variety to the scene, together with other introduced would not have done in so great a degree. conifers such as spruce and fir.

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trees. Please keep dogs under control and take litter take and control under dogs keep Please trees. poets, painters, nobility, even royalty Ð all of whom have whom of all Ð royalty even nobility, painters, poets, whether in words or in or words in whether

wildlife, and by not picking the plants and damaging the damaging and plants the picking not by and wildlife, are treading in the footsteps of these people Ð travellers, Ð people these of footsteps the in treading are their impression of the falls, the of impression their

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Scotland’s finest wild landscapes. wild finest Scotland’s may be read as you rest on your w ay round. The map The round. ay w your on rest you as read be may ater, and pleaded with the Duke of Atholl to plant its plant to Atholl of Duke the with pleaded and ater, W

elcome to the Falls of Bruar, one of one Bruar, of Falls the to elcome W This leaflet is intended as a companion to the walk, and walk, the to companion a as intended is leaflet This written in 1787, Burns imagined that he was the Bruar the was he that imagined Burns 1787, in written

The Humble Petition of Bruar Water to the Bruar’s Common Trees and Plants Noble Duke of Atholl

Robert Burns visited the Falls of Bruar on Sunday, 2nd Falls of Bruar September, 1787, during a brief tour of the Highlands. The Rowan poem was written soon after.

My Lord, I know, your noble ear This, too, a convert shall ensure Woe ne’er assails in vain; To shield them from the storm; Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear And coward maukin sleep secure Your humble slave complain Low in her grassy form: How saucy Phebus’ scorching beams, Here shall the shepherd make his seat, In flaming summer-pride, To weave his crown of flow’rs; Larch Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams, Or find a shelt’ring, safe retreat, And drink my crystal tide. From prone-descending show’rs.

The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts And here, by sweet, endearing stealth, Scots Pine That thro- my waters play, Shall meet the loving pair, If, in their random, wanton spouts, Despising worlds, with all their wealth, They near the margin stay: As empty, idle care: Birch If, hapless chance! they linger lang, The flowers shall vie in all their charms I’m scorching up so shallow The hour of heav’n to grace, Ling They’re left, the whitening stanes amang And birks extend their fragrant arms In gasping death to wallow. To screen the dear embrace. Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen, Here haply, too, at vernal dawn As Poet BURNS cam by, Some musing bard may stray, That, to a Bard, I should be seen And eye the smoking, dewy lawn, Blaeberry Wi’ half my channel dry: And misty mountains grey; A panegyric rhyme, I ween, Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam, Even as I was he shor’d me; Mild-chequering thro’ the trees, But had I in my glory been, Rave to may darkly dashing stream, He, kneeling, wad ador’d me. Horse-swelling on the breeze. Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks, Let lofty firs, and ashes cool, In twisting strength I rin; My lowly banks o’erspread, Bell Heather There, high my boiling torrent smokes, And view, deep-bending in the pool, Cowberry Wild-roaring o’er a linn: Their shadows’ wat’ry-bed: Enjoying large each spring and well Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest, We acknowledge the support of: As Nature gave them me, My craggy cliffs adorn; I am, altho’ I say’t mysel, And, for the little songster’s nest, Worth gaun a mile to see. The close embow’ring thorn. Would, then, my noble master please So may, Old Scotia’s darling hope, To grant my highest wishes? Your little angel band Europe and Scotland He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees, Spring, like their fathers, up to prop Making it work together And bonie spreading bushes. Their honour’d native land! For further information please contact: Delighted doubly then, my Lord, So may, thro’ Albion’s farthest ken, You’ll wander on my banks, To social-flowing glasses Countryside Ranger Service Atholl Estates Ranger Service And listen mony a grateful bird The grace be Ð ‘Athole’s honest man, Planning & Development Services Estates Office Return you tuneful thanks. And Athole’s bonnie lasses!’ Perth & Kinross Council Blair Atholl Pullar House, 35 Kinnoull Street PH18 5TH The sober laverock, warbling wild, PERTH PH1 5GD Tel: 01796 481355 Shall to the skies aspire; Tel: 01738 475392/475258 The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child, Local Shall sweetly join the choir; Text: Christopher Dingwall Illustrations: Hilary Moore, M Roberts The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear, The mavis mild and mellow; The robin pensive Autumn chear, In all her locks of yellow. Designed by Corporate Services, Perth & Kinross Council