Qualla: Lochearnhead https://qualla.com/lochearnhead en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lochearnhead https://qualla.com/lochearnhead Lochearnhead: Introduction https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Euan Nelson, CC BY-SA 2.0. A severed head on a silver platter. That is the image that haunts Lochearnhead's old stories, and the strangest part is that it actually happened. When Lady Margaret Stewart of Ardvorlich opened the door to travelling MacGregors and offered them food, she did not know they had just murdered her brother. They left his head propped at the table with her own cold victuals stuffed into the mouth. She ran into the hills, gave birth on the side of Beinn Domhnuill, and her son grew up to become Major James Stewart, hero of Sir Walter Scott's A Legend of Montrose. The lochan where she labored still bears the name Lochan na Mna, the Lochan of the Woman. This is the kind of place Lochearnhead is. A small Perthshire village at the western tip of Loch Earn, 14 miles north of the Highland Boundary Fault, where the A84 from Stirling meets the A85 from Crieff at the foot of Glen Ogle. Behind every quiet hedge sits a story you did not see coming.

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Image: Euan Nelson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lochearnhead: The Frontier Loch https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Elliott Simpson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Loch Earn was once a borderline. On its eastern shore stood Dundurn, a Pictish frontier fort facing the Gaels of Dál Riata across the water. The Annals of Ulster record that the Scots laid siege to it in 683 AD, and that Giric, sometimes called Grig, King of Picts and Scots, was ...

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Image: Elliott Simpson | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-the-frontier-loch.mp3 0:06 2 full Lochearnhead: The Water Horse https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Anthony O'Neil, CC BY-SA 2.0. Loch Earn has unpredictable currents, the kind that pull boats sideways without warning. The old people had an explanation. An each-uisge, a water horse, lived in the loch. It had been chased out of Loch Tay by Fingal himself and had settled here. The creature would appear on the...

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Image: Anthony O'Neil | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-the-water-horse.mp3 0:06 3 full Lochearnhead: Black Duncan's Castle https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Ian S, CC BY-SA 2.0. A kilometre along the south Loch Earn road stands Edinample Castle, built in 1630 by 'Black' Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy. Duncan was a man of fury and ornery temperament, and he had asked his architect to build the castle with a parapet around the roof. When the work was finishe...

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Image: Ian S | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-black-duncans-castle.mp3 0:06 4 full Lochearnhead: The Drove Road and the Rails https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Robert Bone, CC BY-SA 2.0. Until the military road came through, Lochearnhead was a scatter of crofts and farms. Work on the road from Stirling to Fort William began in 1750, in the aftermath of the Jacobite risings, and the village rose with it. The Lochearnhead Hotel went up in 1746. A Post Office opened...

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Image: Robert Bone | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-the-drove-road-and-the-rails.mp3 0:06 5 full Lochearnhead: The Lifting Stone https://qualla.com/lochearnhead/ Photo credit Andrew Mitchell, CC BY-SA 2.0. Outside Ardvorlich House sits a granite boulder that weighs 152 kilograms, smooth and round and almost ungrippable. This is the Ardvorlich Lifting Stone. As of 2023, fewer than twenty stone lifters have managed to raise it to the chest. Only four have shouldered it. To Scottish s...

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Image: Andrew Mitchell | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/h/b/lochearnhead-wp/gfhb-lochearnhead-the-lifting-stone.mp3 0:06 6 full