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Crossmount

At that time [Ruskin's friend's] properties were ... and a shooting-lodge, Crossmount, at the foot of Schehallion, between Lochs Rannoch and Tummel.

Wks. 35.432.

Crossmount was very important to Ruskin, as evidenced by the fact that a chapter of his autobigraphy is named after it. He seems to have visited twice at the invitation of a recently made friend [Quotation ONE]. In the record of his second visit, in 1847, he describes his walk up the nearby mountain of Schehallion and some thistle clearing [Quotation TWO].

At the time the land north of the house led down through fields to the River Tummel. However, in 1933 a dam was built to create Dunalistair Water and most of the land was covered. The map and satelite image here shows the area before and after. It also shows Shehallion to the south.

Quotation ONE

It chanced that at this time there was staying at Leamington, also under Jephson’s care, the son of an old friend, perhaps flame, of my father’s, Mrs. Farquharson,—a youth now of some two or three-and-twenty, but who seemed to me older than myself, being already a man of some position and influence in Perthshire. A few years before he had come into possession, under trustees, of a large Highland estate, on the condition that he should change his name for that of Macdonald, (properly reduplicate,—Macdonald Macdonald,) considerable sums being reserved in the trustees’ hands by the terms of the will, for the purchase of more land. At that time his properties were St. Martin’s near Perth, where his mother lived; Rossie Castle, above Montrose; another castle, with much rock and moor round it, name forgotten, just south of Schehallion; and a shooting-lodge, Crossmount, at the foot of Schehallion, between Lochs Rannoch and Tummel.

Wks. 35.423

Quotation TWO

First then, of this Love’s Meinie of my own age, or under it, William Macdonald took to me; and got me to promise, that autumn, to come to him at Crossmount, where it was his evangelical duty to do some shooting in due season.

I went into Scotland by Dunbar; saw again Loch Leven, Glen Farg, Rose Terrace, and the Inch of Perth; and went on, pensive enough, by Killiecrankie, to the clump of pines which sheltered my friend’s lodge froif possible wim the four winds of the wilderness.

After once walking up Schehallion with him and his keepers, with such entertainment as I could find in the mewing and shrieking of some seventy or eighty grey hares, who were brought down in bags and given to the poorer tenantry; and forming final opinion that the poorer tenantry might better have been permitted to find the stock of their hare-soup for themselves, I forswore further fashionable amusement, and set myself, when the days were fine, to the laborious eradication of a crop of thistles, which had been too successfully grown by northern agriculture in one of the best bits of unboggy ground by the Tummel.

Wks. 35.425

I must return for a moment to the clumps of pine at Crossmount, and their company of owls, because—whatever wise people may say of them—I at least myself have found the owl’s cry always prophetic of mischief to me; and though I got wiser, as aforesaid, in my field of thistles, yet …

Wks. 35.428

At the time of my visit in May 2023 the current owner was very helpful and showed me a photograph of the house in 1885.

Enter Text

Ruskin made sketches and paintings at Crossmount.

This one appears in the Library Edition.

Wks.35.opp.426

Shehallion from Crossmount garden

Shehallion from across the valley

Early map of the area. Date unknown.

Crossmount in 1867.

I would like to express my thanks to the current owner of Crossmount who is currently restoring some of the rooms. She was very helpful to me in arranging my visit (but please don't turn up unannounced - especially as a result of this website or my name will be mud!)