Blair Atholl Visitor Attractions

The Birks Cinema

The fully refurbished single-screen cinema offers a film-tastic 100-seat auditorium with spacious, comfortable seating and state-of-the art digital projection and sound system.

Audiences can enjoy the latest movie releases as well as broadcast live events (theatre, opera, ballet), while enjoying a glass of local beer or wine too!

The welcoming cafe-bar offers a wide selection of coffees, teas, local cakes, snacks (popcorn and sweets), as well as an enticing range of soft-drinks, beers and wines.

Our mezzanine level hosts live Celtic acoustic music on Thursday evenings – check our website for details of other events. As a community-owned charitable venture, your visit makes a real contribution to Highland Perthshire too!

For film and event listings, tickets, film reviews and the latest movie news, plus the full story behind the restoration of the Birks, just follow the links here. Don’t forget to find out about our fantastic value family tickets or our much loved “Couples” seats!

Blair Castle

For over 700 years, Blair Castle has acted as gatekeeper to the Scottish Highlands. Today, its turbulent history and its strategic role is in the past - yet, as one of Scotland's best-known visitor attractions, it still introduces many thousands of visitors to the Highlands each year.

Its setting in the Strath of Garry remains magnificent and its white, turreted facade seems to sum up all that people expect of a traditional Scottish castle.

Castle Tour and Gardens

Blair Castle is the seat of the Dukes of Atholl and home to the Atholl Highlanders, Britain's only private army. With some thirty treasure-filled rooms to see, extensive parklands - including Diana's Grove and the restored Hercules Garden - woodland and riverside walks, restaurant and gift shop, Blair Castle makes an ideal day out for all the family.

Entertaining and Activities

Blair Castle makes an ideal venue for Highland Balls, dinners and corporate entertaining. Shooting, fishing and pony trekking is available on the estate.

Activities inside Blair Castle for Children

Take part in the children's Castle Detectives Challenge, use the picture clues provided. Children have to hunt down castle treasures and work out the answers. Parents may also be allowed to join in! The activity sheet is collected in the Castle Entrance Hall and takes children around the castle room by room. There is a children's colouring area in our Treasure Room where children can get creative and their parents can concentrate on the vast array of exhibits.

Click here for a list of Blair Castle events

Click here for a list of Atholl Estates Rangers events

Atholl Country Life Museum

The Good Old Days

We invite you to come and visit our unique and lively museum. It is fun for children, informative and entertaining for all. You can explore the heritage created by previous generations and see how we once lived in Atholl.
Fascinating Displays

* Old Kitchen & Box Bed

* The School, Kirk & Smiddy

* 1930's Post office

* Caledonian Shield for Rifle Shooting, the World's Largest Trophy!

* Outstanding Horse Harness

* Road & Rail Services

* Gamekeeper & Wildlife

* The Doctor's Horse Sleigh

Children

Children can sit in the old school desk, examine the objects in the Kiddies Kist, play with the zoetrope or try the quiz and win an award!

Displays

The Museum has three Galleries containing a total of twenty eight displays together with the recreated Trinafour Post Office.

Clan Donnachaidh Centre

Clan Centre & Museum and Gift Shop; adjacent to the 51st Highland Division Memorial, the statue of a piper.

The Clan Centre and Museum preserves and promotes the Clan's heritage and artifacts. Clan Museum, built in 1969, was the first purpose-built clan museum in Scotland. There is a Reading Room where you can discover more about the Clan, the Society and its history. A Gift Shop contains souvenirs featuring the surnames and crests of all the clans of Scotland plus many gift ideas in a wide price range.

NTS Killiecrankie

On 27 July 1689 the peace and tranquility of this beautiful gorge was shattered when the first shots in the Jacobite cause were fired.

One soldier escaped by making a spectacular jump across the River Garry at the spot now known as Soldier's Leap.

The Visitor Centre features 'hands-on' natural history exhibits, models and maps of the battle. Also, see nesting birds at close range.A starting point for walks through the Pass, the Centre features a souvenir book shop, historical and natural history exhibitions and a Ranger Service.

Take a short stroll through attractive woodland, with stunning views of the Pass, down to the historic Soldier's Leap. Enjoy a longer walk along the river through the magnificent wooded gorge of the Pass of Killiecrankie.

Killiecrankie through the seasons...
Spring generates a floral extravaganza at Killiecrankie. The plants on the woodland floor feast on the sunlight to grow and flower before the blue sky is replaced by the chlorophyll green canopy of tree leaves. White wood anemones carpet the woods on the way down to the Soldier's Leap, interspersed with primroses and violets. The air resonates with bird song as the season progresses, with males showing off and establishing breeding territories. Most notable are the resident tits, finches, blackbirds, wrens and robins.

Summer sees migrant birds such as pied and spotted flycatchers, wood and willow wablers arriving to join the residents. In the evenings both pipistrelle and Daubenton's bats are on the wing, each bat munching its way through 3,000 midges a night! While the best of the woodland flowers are over, the verges beside the Visitor Centre come alive with grassland flowers, bees and butterflies. The bird feeding station helps bring the woodland birds close to the Visitor Centre's balcony, where red squirrels are also regular visitors.

During Autumn the Pass of Killiecrankie is renowned for its splendid autumn colours, each tree species makes its own particular contribution to a mesmerising blend of gold, burgundy, saffron, amber, russet, umber and many other colours. It's a good time to spot red squirrels as they search for nuts and seeds to store away for the winter - they regularly come to the feeding station below the Visitor Centre. During periods of rain you can look for the spectacular sight of leaping salmon at the falls in the River Garry beneath the famous Soldier's Leap.

Often the overwhelming sensation of winter in the Pass is that of silence and solitude. Trees stand tall, no longer burdened by their life-giving foliage, bare spars of branches supporting an ever-interlocking network of naked twigs.
Robins and wrens may be heard singing, but the undoubted star performer of winter is the dumpy, brown, white-bibbed dipper. Its beautiful long warble of liquid and grating notes can be heard above the rushing River Garry. Snow may be deep at the Pass of Killiecrankie in a hard winter. Tracks from deer or squirrels and the runs of small mammals are common, but perhaps the most exciting discovery is the five-toed webbed print of the secretive otter.