Glenlyon

   GLENLYON, lately a quoad sacra parish, chiefly in the parish of Fortingal, and partly in that of Weem, county of Perth, 12 miles (W.) from the Kirktown of Fortingal; containing 570 inhabitants. This district extends in a western direction, from the head of Fortingal, nearly to the stage-house of Tyndrum, upon the western military road, a distance of about thirty-two miles. It consists of a very narrow glen, the sides of which are formed of some of the loftiest mountains in the county. What is termed its general level ground, by the river Lyon, is seldom more than a furlong broad; and the mountains on the north approach so closely in some places to the opposite range, on the south, as to confine the struggling river to a bed not much more than eight yards wide. Numerous streams, some of them four miles in length, descend from the mountains and swell the Lyon; and this river, of which the source is a lake of the same name, after flowing in nearly an eastern direction for upwards of forty miles, its tributaries rendering it more rapid at each confluence, falls into the Tay below Taymouth Castle. In the head of the district the soil is good; but the seasons are inclement, and the crops seldom attain to perfection. The hills, however, afford excellent pasturage for sheep; and in this respect Glenlyon is exceeded by few, if any, of the glens in the Perthshire Highlands. In different parts along the vale are small hamlets, so secluded amidst Alpine scenery as to be deprived of the rays of the sun for a third part of the year. The means of communication are but indifferent: a carrier or runner passes and repasses between Aberfeldy and the extremity of the glen three times a week. The ecclesiastical affairs are under the presbytery of Weem and synod of Perth and Stirling, and the patronage is vested in the Crown: the stipend of the minister is £120, with a manse, and a glebe of the annual value of £2. 10., a privilege of cutting peat, and the summer grazing of two cows. The church, situated in the hamlet of Innerwick, was built by the heritors, in 1828, at a cost of £673, and contains between 500 and 600 sittings. A district box for the poor yields per annum about £16. This place gave the title of Baron, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, to James, second son of John, fourth duke of Atholl, who died in 1837, and was succeeded by his son George, as second lord, now the presumptive heir to the dukedom.

   See Fortingal.