Beatrix Potter in Scotland

For eleven consecutive summers, the Potter family came to Dalguise House near Dunkeld. Their only daughter, Beatrix was four when the family first travelled by train to Scotland in 1870. In 1884 when Beatrix was about 18 she wrote in her diary:

“Even when the thunder growled in the distance, and the wind swept up the valley in fitful gusts, oh it was always beautiful, home sweet home, I knew nothing of trouble then.”

These long holidays first awakened the interest of the young girl to the delights of wildlife and nature.

Her time in Scotland inspired stories of Jeremy Fisher and Mrs Tiggywinkle, who was almost certainly based on an old washer woman who worked in Dalguise.

Most people will have heard of Beatrix Potter, the writer of children’s stories. Far fewer will recognise the name of Charles McIntosh the rural postman from Inver, near Dunkeld. These two very different individuals, brought together by a common interest in fungi, met and subsequently exchanged letters and specimens over a number of years.

Charles was born in Inver in 1839 in the cottage where he was to spend his entire life. His father, also Charles, was a hand-loom weaver, famous fiddle player and music teacher. His mother Mary was a descendent of the MacDonalds of Glencoe.

This story of this ‘Fascinating Acquaintance’ is the subject of the exhibition in the Birnam Institute.