Scotland - Day 1

About 10 years ago some friends of mine asked me if I’d like to go fishing with them. Every year they rent a beautiful country house (that sleeps 16) in Glen Lyon near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, Scotland. They've been going for 35 years and they fish for salmon and trout. Of course I said I’d love to do that! I’ve not done any real freshwater fishing before – not a lot of good fishing rivers in southwest Cornwall where I grew up – but I did a fair bit of sea fishing in my youth. And, besides, even if I didn’t fish, there’s the scenery, the wildlife and the fun of hanging out with good friends. 

However, it turned out that they went in mid-May and that was bang in the middle of the filming schedule for QI. As I only worked for QI for six months of the year, I couldn’t really take a holiday in the middle. Plus, you need to be in the studio when it’s one of your scripts being recorded in case of last-minute tweaking or research. So I had to turn down the offer, sadly. And the following year. And the following year. And, indeed for the next six years. But then I left QI and my May was suddenly free! I could go at last! Except … along came Covid-19 and that scuppered it for a further two years. 

And so, finally, we come to 2023 and the 10th anniversary of my original offer and I am finally going.

Day 1 was pretty uneventful as it consisted of a long drive from Buckinghamshire to Perthshire, stopping a few times for comfort breaks and to grab food and drink. But, some eight hours later, we arrived at Chesthill House and the sun came out for us. 

Chesthill has quite a history. It was owned between the 1500s and 1700s by the Campbell clan. Robert Campbell led the detachment of government troops responsible for the infamous Glencoe Massacre of the MacDonalds in 1691. Some element of planning may have been undertaken from Chesthill House.

In around 1700, in an attempt to clear debts, Chesthill was sold to Colonel James Menzies of Culdares, a staunch Jacobite who fought in the 1715 Rising, but was captured after the rebellion and was exiled to North America. Sir Donald Currie bought the Chesthill Estate in 1903, and shared some of the Lyon fishing rights with the Fortingall hotel which he rebuilt. South Chesthill Estate (and Chesthill House) was next sold to the Wiseley family and then the Roys before being bought by the current owners – the Ramsays in 1978. Major-General Charles Ramsay later bought neighbouring Inverinain, so making an estate of some 7,000 acres and roughly 6 miles of fishing on which a record 105 salmon were caught in 2012. In 2015 Chesthill House was refurbished, including adding four new bathrooms and central heating in all rooms. The estate is now owned by Charles Jnr.  

As it was nearby I did a little visit to the kirk at Fortingall to see the famous Yew tree. It’s alleged to be one of the oldest trees in Europe – some say the world – as the oldest parts of the tree are over 5000 years old. That means that it’s older than Stonehenge. However, the tree, as it stands today, is a pale shadow of how it looked in its prime. 

In 1769 it was recorded as having a girth in excess of 56 feet (17m) and, sadly, it became a target for souvenir hunters who removed large sections. Then children set fire to it which burned out the central trunk - in the 1800s people wrote of riding their carriage through the centre of the tree. Amazingly, the remaining outer pieces of the Yew survived and began to grow in a number of separate clumps. 

The evening meant a communal meal, some enjoyment of the wonderful dark skies and spotting the odd deer. 

Tomorrow, we hit the river.