Tale of Beatrix

Not twenty kilometres up the road is another village, Birnam, virtually new in British terms as it came into being as the railroad was being built from London up to Aberdeen. Enroute there, the Duke of Athol refused to let the rail road cross his estate, heading further north. So, for a while, it came to a standstill at Birnam and there grew a little village surrounded by idyllic countryside and mountains thick with trees that soon became a tourist magnet. 

Londoners started to visit for holidays, using the new railroad.  They would stay at Birnam, so, despite the duke's misgivings, this village sprouted hotels and guest houses, much like a spa town. 

Among the summer visitors were the Potters of London. Beatrix and her brother were brought to Birnam every year by their parents. They frequently rented a home for the summer and early autumn and the children wandered freely: meeting the rosy-cheeked locals, patting white-tailed rabbits in the field, and collecting and drawing specimens of wee plants and animals.

Beatrix wrote letters with pictures and sent them back to friends, illustrating her vacation. In 1893, from Birnam, she sent a picture letter telling A Tale of Peter Rabbit to her governess's son who was ill. She thought to cheer him up. She had written that story and the Tale of Jeremy Fisher two successive afternoons in a row. 

For years, Beatrix attempted to have these and other tales published, but had no takers, until a publisher took her on and sold the wee books for a shilling each, and so history was made. 

Birnam was a very inspiring setting for young Beatrix. Around Birnam and its neighbouring village, Dunkeld, the woods are lushly forested. Today the trees there are mainly silver birch and scrub oak, but here and there are larches. 

The very first larch trees to arrive in this area came as seeds in a man's suitcase after a holiday in the Tyrol where the larches made a lasting impression and became a prized acquisition. 

These European larches were crossed with Japanese larches producing the local Dunkeld larches which the Duke of Athol loved so much that he clothed the hillsides around Dunkeld with them in the 18th century.

Babies of the parent larches can still seen today behind Dunkeld Cathedral. We found others in nearby villages.

Birnam, where the railway line was halted

It was here that Beatrix Potter wrote the tale of Peter Rabbit

The first larch trees came in a suitcase from the Tyrol