Visitor Information Centre

Beautiful Perthshire, and bathed in a splash of evening sunshine after the showers, Blair Atholl's pretty Visitor Information Centre is a beautifully preserved corrugated iron building. Such buildings were once a common sight in the Highlands of Scotland and I remember them vividly from my childhood, when every community seemed to have one in use as a community centre. Originally appearing around the turn of the19th century, they were constructed of 'corrugated iron', which was actually wrought iron, thicker and more robust than the material the term refers to today, and they were galvanised to make them weather resistant. They were also inexpensive, and coming as ready-to-assemble kits, they could be erected quickly, and so became fairly widely adopted for use as houses, offices, stables, ballrooms, churches and hospitals. Blair Atholl Visitor Information Centre is an excellent example of this type of building, proudly serving the community and its visitors. The majestic old copper beech tree in front of the centre was planted as a sapling in 1902 by the children of Blair Atholl School to commemorate the coronation of Edward V11.