Hermitage Birnam Walk
The Hermitage near Dunkeld in Perthshire is one of the finest and most dramatic landscape walks in Highland Perthshire, a designed landscape of the eighteenth century around the gorge of the River Braan that combines the extraordinary Ossian's Hall folly, the Black Linn waterfall where the Braan plunges through a narrow gorge in a fall of considerable power and the tall Caledonian pine and Douglas fir woodland of the surrounding forest in one of the most atmospheric and most completely realised designed landscape experiences in Scotland. The National Trust for Scotland manages the site.
The Black Linn waterfall is the centrepiece of the Hermitage, the River Braan forcing its entire volume through a narrow rock gorge before plunging approximately 15 metres in a fall of considerable drama, the rock walls and the height of the surrounding forest creating an enclosed atmosphere of natural power that the eighteenth-century designers exploited brilliantly. The viewing platform at the fall provides the most dramatic vantage point and the combination of the sound, the spray and the visual drama of the water creates one of the finest waterfall experiences available in Perthshire.
The Birnam Oak and Sycamore, survivors of the ancient Birnam Wood that Shakespeare immortalised in Macbeth in his prophecy that Macbeth would remain safe until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, stand in the riverside walk below the Hermitage and provide a direct connection to one of the most celebrated passages in English dramatic literature.