The town of Blairgowrie and Rattray offers a wide selection of pubs and bars in which to enjoy a drink. Yet there are fewer drinking establishments now than in the past.

The town of Blairgowrie and Rattray offers a wide selection of pubs and bars in which to enjoy a drink. Yet there are fewer drinking establishments now than in the past. The North/South Military Road from Coupar Angus to Fort George passed through Blairgowrie, and this, it is said, led to the opening of a great many taverns and ale houses – As many as 34 at one time. Each of the town’s pubs and bars has its own history and fascinating stories to tell, and none more so than Eppie Clark’s Ale House on the Hill o’ Blair, one of the oldest in the town.

It was at Eppie Clark’s Ale House around 1745 that a group of Blairgowrie curlers had ordered a dinner of ‘ beef and greens’ to be ready for them at the end of the bonspiel on the Lochy. ’Beef and greens’ is a traditional Curlers’ meal and consists of beef stew, mashed potato and vegetables.

Unfortunately, on that particular day, a group of Jacobite soldiers on their way north on the Military Road stopped off at Eppie Clark’s and scoffed the curlers’ dinner. The full story may be read in ‘The Curlers’ Dinner’ in Maurice Fleming’s book ‘ The Ghost o’ Mause’.

It is also told in this poem: 

Tradition tells a story of the village,

About ‘the forty-five’ or still more early,

Of rude invasion, foraging, and pillage,

By some bold soldiers following Prince Charlie,

Who on a winter evening came to Blair

And greedily ate up the Curlers’ fare.

Ah! who can faithfully depict the scenes,

How these marauders rallied in a body,

And made a mess of all the beef and greens,

And swallowed rather than discussed the toddy,

And put the innkeeper in consternation

Awed by the military occupation!

What could he do? Though in himself a ‘host’

He was confronted by an armed band

Of hungry fighting men, each to his post,

Obeying his superior in command;

What wonder if he got a little nervous

So cavalierly pressed into ‘the service’?

Then who can realise the blank despair

Of all the Curlers, tired and hungry, too?

Winners and losers of the game were there,

Prepared to dine as Curlers always do,

And round the festive board to meet and sink

Their petty quarrels in a friendly drink.

Eppie Clark’s Ale House came to be known as Hill Cottage and was the home and office of the manager of the nearby Malt Barns. The building had been extended in 1824 to incorporate Rosslyne Cottage. Tragedy struck in January 1993 when there was a landslide in the Cuttle Burn Den to the rear of the building and the cottages had to be evacuated. An overwhelming sense of sadness is portrayed by the Blairgowrie Advertiser headline ‘Historic Cottages are no more’ on Thursday 26 May 1994, when it was reported that the building could not be saved and had to be demolished.

Read more in the chapter ‘Hotels and Public Houses in Blairgowrie and Rattray’ in ‘A Social History of Blairgowrie and Rattray’ by Margaret Laing.