Glen Clova & Glen Doll - The Foothills Of The Scottish Cairngorm Mountain Range

Greetings Travelers!

In this post we are going to take a little tour of one of my favourite areas in all of Scotland.

Glen Clova and the surrounding Glens of Angus is where the countryside meets the Cairngorm mountain range in the heart of central Scotland.

The video above is some footage I shot the last time I visited the area in the Summer of 2019 before the pandemic shut the world down. I edited this footage to music by Andy Irvine , Julie Fowlis and Ed Sheeran.

Now that we are free to travel again this year I hope to get back to this place of intense natural beauty and fresh Scottish mountain air soon.

These shots are of a lake which is just a few minutes along the road from the Glen Clova hotel. This lovely scenic spot is a favourite place for an easy walk from the hotel round the lake and back to the hotel for lunch.

Its possible to hire a boat and fish here with the proper permit.

This is the stretch of road leading back to the Glen Clova Hotel. Thats me sitting on the bench, my dad snapped this shot.

This is the outside of the Clova Hotel.

The inside is beautifully rustic and cosy , the décor here hasn't changed for decades, I love it.

This is the bar area with its wood burning stove, this is hands down my favourite bar in all of Scotland, I cant wait to revisit it.

At the side of the hotel there are bunk houses which can be rented for around £10 per person per night. These rooms offer very basic accommodation for the many mountain climbers who visit this area.

There are also several luxury log cabins available, each with its own hottub and sauna.

Just across the road from the Clova Hotel is a small church known as The Clova Kirk. There has been a church on this site for several centuries. This current incarnation was built in 1860.

On the other side of the road across from the church is this lovely old mill house.I would guess this was built around the same time as the church in the mid 1800s.

Walking along a winding little country road for roughly 1 mile we come into Glen Doll. This is as far as we can drive. The terrain that lies north of here is all rugged Cairngorm Mountains

In this shot we can see a car park and a rangers station. This is a popular spot with mountaineer's and wild campers. It is surrounded by truly stunning Scottish mountain scenery.

There are a few huts here which can be hired for mountain climbing party's/hillwalkers. They offer basic accommodation much like the bunkhouses at the Clova Hotel.

The old hut you see in this photo above has been here since the 1940's.I believe it was knocked down during the pandemic due to it being dilapidated.

It has since been replaced with this newer building.

I'm glad I manged to get some photographs and footage of the inside of the old hut. I have been coming here regularly since I was around 5 years old. There are many many fond childhood memories of this area.Im glad I was able to visit it and preserve some its memory before they knocked it down.

In this video you can see what the old hut was like. Very basic but right next to the river Esk and surrounded by stunning mountain scenery.

This video also shows footage from Loch Brandy which is about a 1 hour climb on the road up from the Clova Hotel.

The views on the walk up to Loch Brandy are pretty stunning.This is a view of the lake pictured at the very start of this post.Its a screenshot taken from the video above,zoomed in around 50x shot on the walk up to Loch Brandy.

Loch Brandy lies in what's known as a caldera .This was once a volcano. The mountains behind the lake are known as The Snub,another popular walking route is around the loch and over the Snub.

The thing you can see sticking out the water in the picture above is actually a guy fishing.

This area looks and feels ancient, areas of extinct volcanic rock are said to have intense natural earth energies much like leylines.

Everytime I am here in my minds eye I envision dragons and other super natural beings coming here to play :).

While researching the history of the area I found some very interesting information about witchcraft being practiced here in the 1600s.

You can read about it here....
https://angusfolklore.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-last-look-at-witches.html

"No source seems to name of most of the witches who haunted Loch Brandy above Glen Clova. James Stirton says that the colony of witches who lived here numbered in the hundreds. They were apparently split between Cairn Inks (or Cairn o’Inks) and the loch itself. Cairn Inks was reckoned to be a superlative vantage point to view the results of supernatural mischief being played out down in the glen. There was once a dispute who would lead the extended coven and a rivalry was initiated between the witch voted as leader and the one who came second. The proposed leader carelessly flew above the kirk of Clova one Sunday while a service was in progress. Unluckily for her a blessing was being uttered at that moment. She heard it, gave an awful shriek, and plummeted down on to the roof of the kirk. It was a snowy winter day and the congregation left in a hurry, anxious to get home before their journeys became impossible. The witch fell down and, lucky for her, found an old besom which had been left behind by the cleaner of the church. In a flash she was airborne again. However, he freedom was relatively short-lived and she was detained by the authorities.
According to Stirton this last glen witch was condemned:

There to be chained to the Higher Cairn with a chain of adamant, to work all day long in collecting the dew and the rain to supply the dead water, and all night to sit amid the roar of the tempest or the intense solitude, speaking to none and being spoken to by none, lonely, hopeless and despairing, suffering many mortal ills without any of their counter-balancing joystill centuries hence a miserable death will close a miserable and wretched life.

For ages thou’lt have work enow,
And in the end consuming fire,
When the blazing faggots of Witches’ Knowe
Shall avenge the “shot of Bentyre.”

This poor witch may be equated with Marget Adamson who was put to death on 8 June 1662. Aigain in Clova there is a proximity between places of punishment and witchcraft, there still being a road which connects Gallows Howe and Witches’ Howe. According to Victorian Ordnance Survey workers in the 19th century the latter place was ‘An irregular piece of rough ground north of the main road & west of Cadham farm house Mr. Lucas the tenant of Cadham states that when excavating at this spot, he found several bones and burned sticks & that the last witch of Clova was burned there.’ (Witches How(e) is at map reference NO331724, at Caddam, and nearby is Witches' Knowe.)-

Above the glen is a fissure named the Witch’s Crack which is supposed to grow wider every year. (At Red Craigs there is also an area of cliff know as the Witch’s Tooth.) A curse is said to have been placed upon this place, whereby a witch promised that one day the waters of the loch would flood downhill and drown everyone in Clova. The jougs or witch’s collar from Clova kirk which was used to punish recalcitrant women are now held in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. "

It seems just along the road from the Clova Hotel is an area just at the entrance to Cadham farm known as The Witches Knowe.This is a place where witcheds were burnt at the stake...

"According to Victorian Ordnance Survey workers in the 19th century the latter place was ‘An irregular piece of rough ground north of the main road & west of Cadham farm house Mr. Lucas the tenant of Cadham states that when excavating at this spot, he found several bones and burned sticks & that the last witch of Clova was burned there.’ "

With all this in mind I have often thought it would be fun to try and film a documentary or short film about Witches in this area. When I first found out all of this info I made a spooky little trailer for a film project that currently has the working title of "Glen Cloven"

Check it out here.

Until next time take care and stay safe!