Walk 1 – Above The Square

If you’d prefer, you can download a pdf version of this walk here
Map Key

MAP of the WALK                                 DC – Discovery Centre – Start Point (approx. 30mins)

  1. Old Fire Station
  2. Whisky Castle & Highland Market
  3. Argyle House
  4. Birnie’s
  5. Bridget’s and Old Military Road
  6. Michael’s Catholic Church
  7. The Smugglers Hostel
  8. Balnakyle and White Heather Hotel (Fraoch Geal)
  9. Old Smiddy (Otakaro)
  10. Fence Lines – boundaries of original feus

From The Discovery Centre walk across the Square to the Clockhouse Restaurant and continue up Main Street, on the right-hand side.

Walk past No.38 Main Street, once a branch of the National Commercial Bank.

Tomintoul Fire Brigade dressed to the nines! 1960

Until 1964 our Community Fire Station was located here, before moving to a modern facility further up Main Steet. The Tea Room has photos and memorabilia on display.

Fire truck 1960
Looking up Main St c1900, from present day Old Firestation Tea Room
John Ross outside the Central Stores 1965

Look across the street to The Whisky Castle & Highland Market (formerly The Highland Whisky Depot & Central Stores). A shop has stood here since the 1800s. For much of the 20th century, it was owned by the Ross family. The Central Stores sold groceries, gifts and souvenirs, fuel, fishing tackle and ‘the best ever whiskies distilled’. And it still does!

Argyll House – Temperance Hotel

Continue up the street past the car park and look across to Argyle House. The Temperance movement began in Scotland in 1829, a social movement which campaigned for the moderation, or better still, total abstinence of alcohol consumption, in a bid to save the ‘lower classes’ from a life of drunken debauchery.  Some Temperance Hotels continued to offer beer and wine, so the situation was not entirely bleak.

Continue to the crossroads and Birnie’s Lane, on your right.

Atholl Birnie in the doorway, 1960s

For many years, the Birnie family operated their bakery and grocery shop at this location. The house still has the original shop front façade. Visitors arriving from Glenlivet or Aberdeenshire were often greeted with a friendly wave from the shop window, making Birnie’s their first welcome to Tomintoul.

In 2002, a team of seventy actors, directors, and technicians visited Tomintoul for a month-long film production. Tomintoul served as the stand-in for the fictional town of Tullybridge in the film One Last Chance.

Birnie’s Shop doubled for ‘Murray’s Grocers’ in the 2004 film One Last Chance
(Actors Neve McIntosh and the late Ralph Riach)

‘Tullybridge is a one-horse town in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish Highlands. Nothing much happens in Tullybridge, until three friends Fitz, Nelly and Seany accidently find gold. This discovery triggers a series of increasingly absurd and desperate events, made worse when their foolproof money-making scheme reaches the ears of local Big Man Harry, who wants in on the action.’

 The film, released in 2004, starred Jamie Sives, Kevin McKidd, Iain Roberstson, Dougray Scott and James Cosmo, plus numerous local villagers who stood in as film extras.

Leading actor Jamie Sives (Fitz) outside Birnie’s/Murray’s Grocers

In April 2026 police raided the disused shop and premises and discovered an illegal cannabis farm with a street value worth close to a million pounds… giving new meaning to Tomintoul’s claim as the ‘highest village in the Highlands’.

Turn right and walk down Birnie’s Lane and stop at junction with Tomnabat Lane.

Before the planned village of 1776

Ahead of you is the track which continues from Birnie’s Lane, onto a private road which leads to the ancient 12th Century site of St. Bridget’s Chapel and burial ground.

Turn left up Tomnabat Lane.

You are now following the original route of the Old Military Road of 1754 which predates the village and was part of the extended route from the south, linking Blairgowrie up to Fort George.

General Wade’s Military Roads was a network of military roads constructed in the Scottish Highlands during the mid-18th century, after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. 

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Continue past Chapel Lane on your left and go through the gate into Our Lady and St Michael’s Catholic Church. The gate needs a firm push (latch on back).

Our Lady and St Michael’s Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church of St. Michael’s built in 1837 replaced an earlier church on the same site dating from 1788.

Many people in Tomintoul, like those in the nearby Braes of Glenlivet, held firmly to their traditional faith. Catholics have long numbered around one third of the population.

In the Churchyard, follow the right-hand path around the side of the Church.

On your right is the former Convent and Chapel. Nuns moved here in 1880 from Elgin to begin teaching at the Catholic School, the Convent closed in 1975 but is still in use today as the St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Centre, a residential centre.

St. Michael’s Church is now closed (privately owned) and parishioners attend Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Chapeltown of Glenlivet.

At the junction with Main Street, turn right onto Main St and walk up the street.

The Smugglers Hostel, originally St. Joseph’s Catholic School which closed in 1963.  On the opposite side of the street is the old church hall (now a private house).

Continue up the street past the Fire, Police & Ambulance Station until you reach the last two houses on right hand side before the junction with Delnabo Road.

Monica Jackson 1920-2020

The first of these two houses, Balnakyle, was once home to the remarkable mountaineer Monica Jackson. While living in Tomintoul she became a member of the ‘Ladies Scottish Climbing Club’. In 1955 she and two Scottish climbers, Evelyn Camrass and Betty Stark, set off on the first all-female expedition to the Himalayas, exploring an unvisited area of the Jugal Himal in Nepal and making the first ascent of a 20,000ft peak which they named Gyalgen after one of their Sherpas. She and Stark wrote a book about their adventures, Tents in the Clouds, which was published in 1957.

Sitting on the steps of Balnakyle with her children Simon & Sue.
Tomnabat Hotel 1954, looking down Main Street

Next to Balnakyle stands the modern private house Fraoch Geal, built on the site of the White Heather Hotel (formerly Tomnabat Hotel), which burned down in 1984. Originally a shooting lodge, then a doctor’s house and surgery, Tomnabat Hotel 1936-1959, was named after the hill which overlooks the village.

At the junction with Delnabo Road, turn left and cross the Main Street, and down Smiddy Lane – notice the ‘guard stone’ on the house corner, to protect the building from passing cartwheels.

 

Tomintoul Smiddy c1910

On the corner of Lecht Drive is the modern private house Otakaro on the site of the old Smiddy.

(Smiddy – Scots variant of Smithy)

In 1841 there were three blacksmiths in Tomintoul. Blacksmiths were often located on the outskirts of villages and towns, due to the noise, smoke and fire risks. Horses could be rested, fed and watered in the adjacent fields.

Peter ‘Brookie’ McIntosh (1889-1963), the Tomintoul blacksmith from 1914 until he retired in 1953

Peter described himself as a ‘General Blacksmith, Implement Maker & Cycle Agent’ diversifying into bicycle and later motorcycle and automobile repairs, for this he built a separate wooden workshop onto the Smiddy.

Paul McGann as Percy Toplis in the 1986 BBC TV series The Monocled Mutineer

His most infamous customer was Percy Toplis, the fugitive ‘Monocled Mutineer’ and suspected murderer, who in June 1920 conned ‘Brookie’ into repairing his stolen bicycle. Toplis was subsequently involved in the shooting of George Greig a local policeman and John Grant a farmer, at a cottage on the Lecht road and then escaped on his bicycle to Aberdeen. (Toplis was shot dead by police near Penrith, England, a few days later.)

After 1953, Brookie’s blacksmithing business continued with his two sons Peter and Raymond.

Raymond (1923-1986) was the last Tomintoul blacksmith and retired in 1969 due to ill health. The workshop and tools remained undisturbed until 1985 when Raymond donated them to the village museum, now the Discovery Centre.  The tools form part of a sculpture of a blacksmith in the Museum garden.

Now turn left and continue down Lecht Drive.

Looking into the fields on your right, you can still see the old fence lines marking some of the original feu boundaries of 200 years ago, these long strips of lotted land gave households in adjacent buildings enough ground to grow crops like oats and turnips and tend cattle and horses.

Our thanks to the following who provided information, images, and help in producing these Trails:

Tomintoul & Glenlivet Development Trust (copy maps); Sandra Stubbs; Reuel Chisholm; Allan Geddes (Old Tomintoul, 2004); Aberdeen University (GWW Collection – CC BY 4.0 license); the McLellan family; John MacIntyre; Ebeth Coutts; IWM (D22626 IWM Non-Commercial License). Donald and Fenella Corr; Royan Fettes; Lord Lieutenant Banffshire; Victor Gaffney (Lordship of Strathavon 1960; Tomintoul its glens and people 1976); Lionsgate; Eve Shaw. Family of Monica Jackson; Hamish and Caroline McIntosh; Alistair Chisholm, Jennifer Stewart, Malcolm MacGarvin, Paul Alderson, Angela Burstow, Micky Gibbard, Allan Cameron, Edward H. Peck (Avonside Explored 1989); ‘The Touler’; Tomintoul & Glenlivet History Group.

Written by Reuel Chisholm, April 2026. 

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