Clunie is a small settlement in

Perthshire Perthshire (locally: ; gd, Siorrachd Pheairt), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, ...

, Scotland, west of Blairgowrie. It lies on the western shore of the

Loch of Clunie Loch of Clunie is a small lowland freshwater loch that is located west of Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Clunie Castle The Loch of Clunie has a single island, said to be artificial, which has the remains of Clunie Castle. The house ...

History

Near the village on a small hill are the foundations of an early defensive settlement. The fortifications on the site date back to the 9th century and even

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

material has been discovered at the site. There is also evidence of defensive structures nearby to this

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

dating back to the Roman period. One notable use of this hill site was by

Kenneth MacAlpin Kenneth MacAlpin ( mga, Cináed mac Ailpin, label=Medieval Gaelic, gd, Coinneach mac Ailpein, label=Modern Scottish Gaelic; 810 – 13 February 858) or Kenneth I was King of Dál Riada (841–850), King of the Picts (843–858), and the King ...

, the first king of Scotland, as a base for hunting in the nearby royal forest of Clunie. English troops occupied the site following their victory at the Battle of Dunbar during the

First War of Scottish Independence The First War of Scottish Independence was the first of a series of wars between English and Scottish forces. It lasted from the English invasion of Scotland in 1296 until the ''de jure'' restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty o ...

On a small island (formerly a

crannog A crannog (; ga, crannóg ; gd, crannag ) is typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually built in lakes and estuarine waters of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Unlike the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, which were bu ...

) in the loch stand the remains of Clunie Castle, a tower house of the

bishops of Dunkeld The Bishop of Dunkeld is the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Dunkeld, one of the largest and more important of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th-century cleric named Cormac. However, the first k ...

. The current parish church in the village dates from 1840, designed by Perth architect

William Macdonald Mackenzie William Macdonald Mackenzie (20 July, 1797 – 25 February, 1856) was a Scottish architect, prominent in the first half of the 19th century.mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

with a romanesque doorway thought to be from an earlier 12th- or 13th-century church that stood on the same site. The church is now linked with those at Kinclaven and Caputh. There is a

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

style war memorial in the village park which was erected in 1946 to mark two locals who lost their life in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The cairn also displays nine names of soldiers from the area who died during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Clunie village hall dates from 1912 and is still used by the local community for functions, clubs and events.

Notable people

Clunie is the birthplace of

John James Rickard Macleod John James Rickard Macleod (6 September 1876 – 16 March 1935) was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He i ...

, co-recipient of the 1923

Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

References

{{authority control Villages in Perth and Kinross