Welcome to Kinloch Rannoch in Highland Perthshire

Local History

There is evidence of settlement in the area surrounding Kinloch Rannoch from as far back as 500AD when the missionary St. Blane arrived although the name remains a mystery, as the word “kinloch” means head of a loch, rather than the foot, where the village is located. For many hundreds of years, this tiny and remote hamlet was home to a few primitive people who lived a poverty-stricken existence, surviving mainly by thieving and, for a long time, there were no roads or bridges in the area.

It wasn’t until the end of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion that James Small, a soldier in Lord Loudon’s Regiment, started to enlarge and settle the village with numbers of discharged soldiers and displaced crofters. Initially, the soldiers spent a large part of their time trying to apprehend bands of plundering Highlanders who stole cattle and hid quantities of arms in the hills. The soldiers met with little support from the locals, and the reputation of the “Rannoch thieves” spread far and wide.

Find Out More About The History of Rannoch