A gorge of towering trees near Dunkeld where an old folly, Ossian's Hall, looks straight down onto the Black Linn falls on the River Braan
Approximate location — this spot is pinned to the nearest village, so the exact point may be a little way off.
The Hermitage is a patch of woodland beside Dunkeld run by the National Trust for Scotland, and it is best known for two things. One is the trees: some of the tallest Douglas firs in Britain grow along the path here, and it is worth stopping just to look up. The other is at the end of the short riverside walk, where Ossian’s Hall, a small ornamental building the Dukes of Atholl put up in the eighteenth century, stands on a rock looking straight down onto the Black Linn falls, where the River Braan squeezes through a narrow gap and drops into a dark pool.
In autumn you can sometimes watch salmon throwing themselves up the falls on their way upstream, which is the sort of thing that keeps children happy for ages. The path is short, mostly level and easy, so it suits families and a quick leg-stretch off the A9.
It is free to walk in, though the car park has a charge. Dunkeld itself is a couple of minutes away, with its part-ruined cathedral down by the Tay, and Birnam, of Macbeth fame, is just across the river.
