Glenfarg (place)
The glen is a deep wooded valley traversed by the
River Farg (or Farg Water).
As described in an early twentieth-century guidebook, the glen “commences about one mile [north] from the village”, which was known “in olden times”—the time of Ruskinʼs youth—as
Damhead
but changed to
Glenfarg in
1890 with the advent of a rail line.
At this time, the village was described as situated five miles north of
Milnathort (a village on the north bank of
Loch Leven), six and a half miles south of the
Bridge of Earn (crossing the
River Earn),
and ten miles south of
Perth–the
Ruskinsʼ destination when visiting
John Jamesʼs sister,
Jessie Richardson
and her family, prior to
Jessieʼs death in
1828
(
Jack,
Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 7th ed., n.d., 12).
The
River Farg, which descends from the
Ochils and turns north‐northeast at the
village of Glenfarg and thence into the glen,
marks the meeting of three county boundaries—the counties of
Perth,
Fife, and
Kinross.
In an account of the parish
Arngask, prepared for
The New Statistical Account of Scotland
(
1845), the
Farg is described as “a small stream which rises near the western extremity of the parish,
and, for upwards of a mile, separates it from that of
Forgandenny. It then flows through the parish,
separating, till it reaches
Damhead, the
county of Kinross from that of
Perth.
Then it begins to separate the
county of Perth from that of
Fife, and continues to form the boundary between these counties
till it arrives at the point where it leaves the parish, about the middle of the romantic and beautifully wooded glen [i.e.,
Glenfarg] to which it communicates its name,
and which travellers so much admire” (
Burt, “Parish of Arngask”, in The New Statistical Account of Scotland, 10:883).
Through the glen, the river “extends three miles downward till it opens out into
Strathearn” on its north end—that is,
the valley of the
River Earn, into which the
Fargempties, and which flows eastward from
Loch Earn to
River Tay
(
Jack,
Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 4th ed.,
1908, 12).
(In the
The New Statistical Account of Scotland,
Glenfarg is most clearly identified on the northwest corner of the map of
Fife and
Kinross counties
that is published with volume 9 of the series. A detailed map is also available in
Jack,
Glenfarg and District Past and Present.)
The growing fame of the picturesque attraction can be traced in successive guidebooks.
In the
1820s, when
Ruskin composed his poems,
Glenfarg rated a brief mention in one of the “short, portable” guidebooks that
Kathleen Grenier says appeared in this decade to lead
“readers on a series of tours” through
Scotland
(
Tourism and Identity in Scotland, 66).
In
The Scottish Tourist (
1825), the traveler coming south from
Perth
is alerted to the glen as “a romantic little valley embosomed by the
Ochils”. These hills
are characterized as “dwarfish when compared with the lofty
Grampians” to the north;
yet, because the
Ochils “present a smooth surface, and are clothed to their summits with the deepest verdure, possessing also a pastoral serenity and softness”,
the scene imparts “a new and pleasurable tone to the mind of the tourist, who returns from contemplating the magnificence of
Highland scenery”
(
The Scottish Tourist, and Itinerary [3d ed., 1830], 125).
In later accounts, rather than being regarded as easing the spectator down from the grandeur of the
Highlands,
the glen takes on its own share of the sublime. When approached from the south, riding north from the
Firth of Forth—the direction
traveled by the Ruskins when first encountering
Glenfarg during a tour—the glen presented
“certainly the finest portion of the journey, and perhaps the only bit of grand scenery that is to be met with on the road
between
Queensferry and the
Bridge of Earn”,
according to a travel writer in the
1880s. Prior to reaching the glen, in this writerʼs experience, the landscape traversed by the
“
Great North Road between
Kinross and
Damhead [i.e., the village of
Glenfarg],
after leaving
Milnathort and losing sight of
Loch Leven”, was “of a very dreary character,
being bleak and solitary, without any of those grander features which often impart an interest to a wild and unfrequented country”.
Beyond
Damhead, however, “the
Great North Road skirts the
Farg”, the road “descend[ing alongside the river] between the wood‐clad sides of the magnificent glen”
(
Beveridge, Between the Ochils and Forth, 95, 94).
By the early twentieth century, when
Ruskinʼs poems about
Glenfarg had become available in print,
a guidebook devoted specifically to “the famous glen” and its environs,
Glenfarg and District Past and Present,
touted how the route had been highlighted by northbound celebrity travelers, ranging from
Ruskin
to
Prince Leopold of Saxe‐Coburg, the future king of Belgium to
Queen Victoria.
In the
1908 edition of the guidebook, the glen is credited with having drawn forth the young
Ruskinʼs “descriptive powers”
when he passed through the valley “on a winterʼs day when the rocks were hung with icicles”. This allusion to Ruskinʼs poem,
is expanded in a later edition of the guidebook (ca.
1930s),
quoting at length from
“Glenfarg” and “Glen of Glenfarg” (“Papa how pretty those icicles are”).
For royal testimonials to the beauty of the glen, the guidebook quotes
Leopold of Saxe‐Coburg, who,
in
1819 while on a tour of
Scotland following the death of his spouse,
Princess Charlotte,
declared the beauties of the glen superior even to the romantic vales of
Germany; and
Queen Victoria is quoted,
remarking on the “really lovely” views of
Glenfarg while on her first journey to
Scotland, in
1842
(
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 4th ed. [1908], 12;
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 7th ed. [n.d.], 12–13).
These two visits to
North Britain by British royalty were significant occasions for Scots, but
Victoriaʼs remarks about
Glenfarg were not published until
1868
in
Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.
Leopoldʼs tour in
August–September of the year of Ruskinʼs birth
predated the better‐known visit to
Scotland by
George IV in
1822—the first by a British monarch since
Charles II—and the role of master of ceremonies in
Edinburgh,
which on the later occasion was entrusted to
Walter Scott, was in
1819 bestowed on
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd,
who would later become acquainted with the Ruskins and an admirer of
Johnʼs youthful talents.
Leopold also enjoyed a public reception in
Perth. However, while the prince
was “said to have often expressed himself in glowing terms of admiration” of “the endless diversity of sublime, picturesque, and romantic scenery
which enriches the route by which he approached the Highlands”, his compliments on the beauties of
Glenfarg in particular
may have been preserved as only a local tradition, supposedly shared with the landlord of the
Bein Inn “while the horses were feeding” at this posthouse situated midway in the glen
(, 275;
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 4th ed. [
1908], 12;
and see
Desmarest, “Prince Leopold of Saxe‐Coburgʼs Entry into Edinburgh, 1819”).
The
Bein Inn “in the old coaching days” presented
“the third and last stage on the road from
Queensferry to
Perth”,
although “the building which then formed the inn” was said to stand “a little farther down the hill than the . . . caravanserai” that presently stands
(
Beveridge, Between the Ochils and Forth, 95).
The coaches came from
Kinross via
Milnathort,
Middleton,
Newhill and
Langside;
and in the village, horses were changed at the
Punch Bowl Inn
(
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 7th ed. [n.d.], 12).
Despite these services, the condition of the road that the Ruskins would have followed along the
Farg in the
1820s is unclear,
for although “the
Great North [Road] . . . from
Edinburgh to
Aberdeen was engineered in
1808–1810,
. . . the part south to
Milnathort [near
Loch Leven, just below
Glenfarg] was not completed till
1832”.
In any case, the route through the village formed a section of “the old coaching‐ro andad from
Queensferry to
Perth. . . .
Beyond the glen, the road led to a pass over the
Ochils known as the
Wicks of Baiglie, which was
associated with a prospect of
Perth as described in
Walter Scottʼs
The Fair Maid of Perth,
although the exact situation of this view and of the area named the
Wicks became matters of speculation
(see
Beveridge, Between the Ochils and Forth, 96–101;
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 7th ed. [n.d.], 22–24).
In his poems about
Glenfarg,
Ruskin took note of a local industry, mentioning “floury mills”
(
“Glen of Glenfarg” [“Glen of Glenfarg thy beauteous rill”])
and “the water wheel that turns slowly round / Grinding the corn”
(
“Glenfarg” and “Glen of Glenfarg” (“Papa how pretty those icicles are”)).
In
1869, when he printed the latter poem in
Queen of the Air,
Ruskin annotated the line describing the water mill, “Political Economy of the Future!”
(
Ruskin, Works, 19:396–97).
In the
1840s, the
Farg valley was still active with four mills for grinding corn, twenty‐two thrashing mills, and a sawmill;
however, as the century advanced, the local industry declined. According to the
1908 edition of the
Glenfarg guidebook, local mills were undercut by cheap imported flour,
which even “after paying all carriage dues, could be sold at the millerʼs door for less price than he could produce it”.
The meal and flour mills are described as having long been closed, their “decaying walls” along the
Farg “now silent as the grave, save when the winds sigh eerily” through them;
and whereas the
1908 edition of the guidebook could still point to
“old people . . . in our parish” who remembered the mills, the
1930s edition concluded that “no one now lives who was familiar with these meal mills in our parish”
(
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 4th ed. [1908], 8–10;
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present,, 7th ed. [n.d.], 8–9).
While the perception that local goods were undersold by mass production was partly true, however, the causes of the decline were more complex.
“From the
Industrial Revolution through the
nineteenth century, demand increased for a whiter wheaten loaf at the expense of wholemeal wheat, barley, or rye bread”—the
more refined bread believed at the time to be healthier. Simultaneously, changes in technology displaced stone mills with more efficient “roller” mills,
which favored “harder imported wheat” over the “
British‐grown softer grains” that ground well by stone. Bakers also preferred imported “strong
North American,
Eastern European, and
Russian flours“
since these “produced a well‐risen loaf with less flour”, increasing bakersʼ profits. Researchers of this history
appreciate the “irony in considering the
late‐nineteenth‐century revolution in milling with its attendant transformation in consumption patterns
when, a century later, a reversal in consumption is taking with an increasing demand for stone‐ground wholemeal flour, some of it produced in restored country water mills”
(
Tann and Jones, “Technology and Transformation”, 66–67). Ruskin would likewise have appreciated the irony—and approved the reversal.
Ruskin would also have regretted the transformation of
Glenfarg brought about by the rail line laid through the glen.
The early twentieth‐century guidebooks to
Glenfarg were designed to vest the future economy of the region in
“developing into a healthy, attractive summer resort”, supported by rail service and other new amenities
(
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 4th ed. [
1908], 4).
Dismal as he would have considered that prospect,
Ruskinʼs early poems do at least confirm the guidebooksʼ claim that “the air” of
Glenfarg “is generally clear and dry,
when
Strathearn and
Perth are enveloped in mist and dampness”.
In
“On Scotland”, he traces the “dreary way” from
Perth to
River Earn,
whereas in the
Glenfarg poems he directs the spectator from the “grassy hills” to the clear and “starry” sky
(
“Glen of Glenfarg” [“Glen of Glenfarg thy beauteous rill”]),
and from the “icicles . . . so near” to the “trees . . . waving upon the rocks side” to the “mountains at a distance seen”
(
“Glenfarg” and “Glen of Glenfarg” [“Papa how pretty those icicles are”]).
As the later guidebook boasts, promoting the resort: “Being surrounded by hills”, the village “has thus the double advantage of having a dry,
wholesome, pure air, such as cannnot be found in low‐lying places, and of being well sheltered from violent winds,
or cold inclement blasts” (
Jack, Glenfarg and District Past and Present, 7th ed. [n.d.], 3).