Ed Sheeran Wrote A Song About My Tiny Scottish Town. Here’s Why It’s Completely Deserved

Sitting on a nook, by the one set of visitors lights within the city of Aberfeldy, is the Black Watch pub. It’s right here that an impromptu singalong was led by none apart from Ed Sheeran.

That was again in 2019. And now, 4 years later, Sheeran has launched his newest album, Subtract, with a closing quantity known as ‘The Hills of Aberfeldy’.

It’s a people track; the type of tune a mournful-looking man sings standing by a bar, holding a glass of whiskey; the patrons in silent reverence, heads bowed.

Within the video for the track, Sheeran (clad in a toasty-looking white cable knit jumper), sinks into the hills. He emerges from the ocean extra appropriately wearing an anorak. In actuality, Aberfeldy is as removed from the ocean as you may get in Scotland. However it does have hills. Plenty of them.

From the doorways of the Black Watch, a 90 minute stroll takes you up a shocking gorge known as ‘The Birks’. This was the inspiration for the second most listened to track about this city, well-known Scotttish poet Robert Burns’ poem ‘The Birks of Aberfeldy’, written 200 years in the past.

Burns fell in love right here too, and lyrics from his poem are etched into indicators you possibly can spot on the stroll – that’s when you can take your eyes off the purple squirrels, swooping buzzards, and trickling waterfalls. That is Scotland at its most alluring.

The attraction of Aberfeldy lies in its place: nestled within the rambling Tay Valley, the place clouds cling insistently to the inexperienced hills throughout. It’s part of the world that oozes romanticism, a spot that’s improved by ‘dreich’ climate – the hills look extra engaging within the rain, the glens extra ethereal. Lichen clings to each department, moss to each stone.

It’s the type of stuff that songwriters reside for. Sheeran’s clearly enamoured with the climate and the bushes:

“Oh, leaves are coated in snow, And the water’s frozen. Oh, I lengthy so that you can be the one which I’m holding,” sings Sheeran, in full Van Morrison mode, earlier than persevering with, “Oh, leaves are beginning to fall, And the solar goes chilly. And my coronary heart may break from the best way of all of it.”

And the leaves are certainly throughout; Perthshire is named Large Tree Nation. Neighbouring village Fortingall is dwelling to a 5,000 yr outdated Yew tree, one of many oldest bushes in Britain.

Subsequent door to the Yew, the Fortingall Lodge holds the type of foot-stomping people music you may think Ed Sheeran having fun with on a Friday evening. It’s so distant right here, you wouldn’t be shocked if there have been Hobbits clanking tankards in a dim nook, too.

However the greatest native nuisance are the beavers, reintroduced in recent times, who go away their tell-tale tooth marks on the trunks of bushes alongside the river. The native Fb group is up-in-arms in regards to the beavers – finest not point out it when you drop into the Black Look ahead to a pint.

Extra welcome are the frequent stream of hikers traversing the favored 79-mile lengthy Rob Roy Manner. The primary pub they arrive to on the town is – sure – the Black Watch.

Again within the 1800s, guests flocked to Aberfeldy by prepare. These days the prepare station is a resort, and the guests arrive by 4×4 with get up paddleboards strapped to their roofs, typically heading to Loch Tay, 5 miles away.

It’s right here that Ed Sheeran as soon as hosted a celebration – renting your entire Scorching Field Spa for himself and pals one summer time’s afternoon. It’s nonetheless open, and guests can sip champagne in a scorching tub with a view of the encompassing mountains earlier than taking the slide into the icy waters.

Looming over the entire space is the enduring peak of Schiehallion – identified in Gaelic as Sidh Chailleann, or the ‘Fairy Hill of the Caledonians’. Schiehallion offers its title to a neighborhood beer, which is in fact served on the Black Watch. Many know Aberfeldy for its eponymous whisky, which is distilled in a gorgeous outdated constructing, set again from the banks of the Tay on a grassy garden.

Across the nook is Glen Lyon espresso roastery. The country venue hosts a small café the place Gaelic singers reminiscent of Kim Carnie are identified to carry out. The roastery not too long ago collaborated with fashionable micro-brewery in close by Blair Atholl on a beer known as Volcano Espresso Stout. It’s as darkish because the lengthy, Scottish winter nights.

The roastery is called after a neighborhood valley dubbed Scotland’s “longest, loneliest and loveliest glen” by legendary Scottish romantic, Sir Walter Scott. Right here, a winding, undulating highway takes drivers previous stone bridges, waterfalls, and moss-clad boulders. In autumn it’s a breath-taking journey amongst falling golden leaves. One can think about Sheeran’s cheeky blue eyes develop wider as he ventured down Glen Lyon, scribbling lyrics in his little Ed Sheeran pocket book.

Take a stroll in any course and also you’ll bump into neolithic stone circles, historic forts or still-inhabited castles.

Again on the town, on the market sq., are a bunch of unbiased outlets. The latest of those is ‘The Store by Ballintaggart’, an outpost of the close by refined Ballingtaggart Farm and Grandtully Lodge.

There’s an art-deco type cinema too, which reveals movies, alongside internet hosting occasions reminiscent of ‘craft and craic’, and a beer membership. Add within the rustic homeware retailer Homer, classic and vinyl document store MoJo, bookshop-cum-café in The Watermill, and a zero-waste store Handam and there’s loads to maintain you busy.

There’s so much to fall in love with round right here, and we haven’t talked in regards to the month-to-month farmer’s market, quaint placing inexperienced, or annual Highland Present. It was clearly sufficient to show Sheeran into half people musician, half romantic poet. Together with his album absolutely heading to No 1, little doubt extra are actually on their means.

“I’ve by no means informed you Darling, we fall in love with the hills of Aberfeldy.”