Huntingtower and Ruthvenfield is a village in Perthshire,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, on the River Almond, northwest of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

. Bleaching, the chief industry, dated from 1774, when the bleaching-field was formed. By means of an old aqueduct, said to have been built by the Romans, it was provided with water from the River Almond, the properties of which rendered it especially suited for bleaching. Bleaching (by chemicals under cover, not with bleach fields) continued Huntingtower until 1981.

Huntingtower Castle Huntingtower Castle, once known as Ruthven Castle or the Place of Ruthven, is located near the village of Huntingtower beside the A85 and near the A9, about 5 km NW of the centre of Perth, Perth and Kinross, in central Scotland, on the main ...

, a once formidable structure, was the scene of the

Raid of Ruthven The Raid of Ruthven was a political conspiracy in Scotland which took place on 22 August 1582. It was composed of several Presbyterian nobles, led by William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie, who abducted King James VI of Scotland. The nobles intende ...

(pron. Rivven), when the

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

lords, headed by William, 4th Lord Ruthven and 1st Earl of Gowrie (c.1541–1584), kidnapped the boy-king James VI, on August 22, 1582. The earl's sons were slain in the attempt (known as the Gowrie conspiracy) to capture James VI (1600), consequent on which the Scots parliament ordered the name of Ruthven to be abolished, and the barony to be known in future as Huntingtower. The Ruthven name and reputation was re-established in 1651, by Sir Thomas Ruthven, for service too the Crown. The source of the -long Perth Lade is just west of the village, at Low's Work weir on the River Almond.

Notable persons

George Turnbull was brought up in Huntingtower. He was the Chief Engineer building the first major

Indian railway Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...

in the 1850s.''George Turnbull, C.E.'' 437-page memoirs published privately 1893, scanned copy held in the British Library, London on compact disk since 2007

References

---- {{authority control Villages in Perth and Kinross