Dunkeld

Lovely.

Anyway, also, when I was speaking to my mum, I was like, you know what, mum, next time you come up, you have to go for a day out in Dunkeld or St Andrews.

I always forget about taking her to these places that are not that far.

No, I know they're not.

And then white martyrdom, which is exile for Christ, becoming an exile for Christ.

And it's in the same spirit of spiritual peregrination that later monks of Iona settled other islands of Scotland and even probably settled Iceland and the Faroe Islands, as well as going inland in Scotland and founding monasteries in places like Melrose, Dunkeld, Deer and then Lindisfarne in what's now the north of England.

I'll say more about that in a moment.

But after arriving in Iona for the next 35 years or so, Columba lived and worked there along with his companions and the growing number of men who were drawn to the reputation of this abbot and community.

especially was he called in to lay out the great system of roads by which the scotch highlands then so lately reclaimed from a state of comparative barbarism were laid open for the great development they have since undergone in the earlier part of the century it is true a few central highways had been run through the very heart of that great solid block of mountains but these were purely military roads to enable the king's soldiers more easily to march against the revolted clans and they had hardly more connection with the life of the country than the bare military posts like fort william and fort augustus which guarded their ends had to do with the ordinary life of a commercial town meanwhile however the highlands had begun gradually to settle down and telford's roads were intended for the far higher and better purpose of opening out the interior of northern scotland to the humanising influence of trade and industry fully to describe the great works which the mature engineer constructed in the highland region would take up more space than could be allotted to such a subject anywhere save in a complete industrial history of roads and travelling in modern britain it must suffice to say that when telford took the matter in hand the vast block of country north and west of the great glen of caledonia which divides the highlands in two between inverness and ben nevis a block comprising the counties of caithness sutherland ross cromarty and half inverness had literally nothing within it worthy of being called a road wheeled carts or carriages were almost unknown and all burdens were conveyed on pack-horses or worse still on the broad backs of highland lassies the people lived in small scattered villages and communications from one to another were well-nigh impossible Telford set to work to give the country not a road or two, but a main system of roads.

First he bridged the broad river Tay at Dunkeld, so as to allow of a direct route straight into the very jaws of the highlands.

Then he also bridged over the Beaulieu at Inverness, so as to connect the opposite sides of the great glen with one another.

next he laid out a number of trunk lines running through the country on both banks to the very north of caithness and the very west of the isle of skye whoever to this day travels on the main thoroughfares in the greater scottish islands in arran islay jura mull or in the wild peninsula of morven and the land of lorn or through the rugged regions of invernessia and russia where the railway has not yet penetrated travels throughout on telford's roads the number of large bridges and other great engineering masterpieces on this network of roads is enormous among the most famous and the most beautiful are the exquisite single arch which spanned the spey just beside the lofty rearing rocks of craig el achi and the bridge across the dee beneath the purple heather-clad braes of balata altogether on telford's highland roads alone there are no fewer than twelve hundred bridges nor were these the only important labours by which telford ministered to the comfort and well-being of his scotch fellow-countrymen scotland's debt to the eskdale stonemason is indeed deep and lasting while on land he improved her communications by his great lines of roads which did on a smaller scale for the highland valleys what railways have since done for the whole of the civilized world he also laboured to improve her means of transit by sea by constructing a series of harbours along that bare and inhospitable eastern coast once almost a desert but now teeming with great towns and prosperous industries it was telford who formed the harbour of wyck which has since grown from a miserable fishing village into a large town the capital of the north sea herring fisheries it was he who enlarged the petty port of peterhead into the chief station of the flourishing whaling trade it was he who secured prosperity for fraserburg and banff and many other less important centres while even dundee and aberdeen the chief commercial cities of the east coast owe to him a large part of their present extraordinary wealth and industry when one thinks how large a number of human beings have been benefited by telford's scotch harbour works alone it is impossible not to envy a great engineer his almost unlimited power of permanent usefulness to unborn thousands of his fellow-creatures as a canal maker telford was hardly less successful than as a constructor of roads and harbours it is true his greatest work in this direction was in one sense a failure he was employed by government for many years as the engineer of the caledonian canal which runs up the great glen of caledonia connecting the line of lakes whose basins occupy that deep hollow in the highland ranges and so avoiding the difficult and dangerous sea voyage round the stormy northern capes of caithness unfortunately though the canal as an engineering work proved to be of the most successful character it has never succeeded as a commercial undertaking it was built just at the exact moment when steamboats were on the point of revolutionising ocean traffic and so though in itself a magnificent and lordly undertaking it failed to satisfy the sanguine hopes of its projectors but though telford felt most bitterly the unavoidable ill-success of his great scheme he might well have comforted himself by the good results of his canal building elsewhere he went to sweden to lay out the gotha canal which still forms the main high-road of commerce between stockholm and the sea while in england itself some of his works in this direction such as the improvements on the birmingham canal with its immense tunnel may fairly be considered as the direct precursors of the great railway efforts of the succeeding generation the most remarkable of all telford's designs however and the one which most immediately paved the way for the railway system was his magnificent holyhead road this wonderful highway he carried through the very midst of the welsh mountains at a comparatively level height for its whole distance in order to form a main road from london to ireland

And I think we can probably all agree that the revival has been very successful in terms of how it's taken off and how many people are playing these instruments across the world.

Anyway, they will be gathering in Burnham and Dunkeld on the 20th, the 21st, and 22nd of November.

And it looks like being a very full and very interesting program.

So at these colloques, what they tend to do is get together.

Uh, his reflections on the story so far from his point of view, you might say.

Julian Goodacre, another key figure and pipe maker, will be doing some pipe maintenance and some fettling session.

If you want to know what fettling is, [smacks lips] uh, get yourself [laughs] along to Dunkeld and Burnham for the colloque.

Jeremy Kingsbury, very interesting, very learned, uh, chap, performer, and, um, researcher and academic.

It's been a fabulous success, with red squirrels now seen all across the region, and many even returning to gardens in the city of Aberdeen.

I'm looking at a result of this miraculous recovery right now, about a two-hour drive south-west of Aberdeen, in the wooded grounds of the Dunkeld House Hotel in Perthshire, the gateway to the Scottish Highlands.

I'm strolling through an autumn carpet of rust and ochre leaves along the banks of the River Tay to the Athol Arms in the small town of Dunkeld, where I'm meeting some friends for an evening of single malt whisky tasting.

Single malt whisky tasting is, I confess, one of my absolute favourite activities, but I would forego it in a heartbeat if the alternative was seeing a red squirrel in its natural habitat.

and to my complete and utter delight, I spot one.

Well, one of the most recognised, best places to photograph the autumn colours is just half an hour, 40 minutes from here, which is the Garry Bridge, just outside Pitlochry.

We've also got Blyarthal, Pitlochry, Dunkeld, Aberfeldy.

There's no end of possibilities.

And you're right, Tom, the big tree country is renowned for autumn colours and not forgetting, of course, the Fife Coast, which is a pool of attractive coastal villages.

Dun is a Scottish word meaning hill.

Which we've just discovered for Dunkeld.

Right.

Kirk is a Scottish word meaning...

It does look good.

It's a beautiful, clean design.

The word Dunkeld comes from the Scottish Gaelic Dun-ka.

Cailun, Dunn meaning fortified hill, and Cailun referring to the Caledonians.