Site last updated 23/05/2012  

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GLEN LETHNOT A small, less well know glen, but steeped in history.   Here was fought "The battle of Saughs" and below is the stone commemorating "Dubrach" - the king's oldest enemy - who lived in this glen.     Glen Lethnot calls itself the smallest of the Angus Glens but it isn’t.   It is certainly one of the most beautiful glens and steeped in history.   Let me tell you about "Dubrach" known as “The King's Oldest Enemy”.   His proper name was Peter Grant and he was born near Braemar at a croft called Dubrach in 1714.   His early years were uneventful but, in 1745 he fought on the Jacobite side for Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden.   (Just as a matter of interest did you know that when Prince Charlie was born, in Rome, 100 invited guests watched the birth!)   Anyway the Jacobites were defeated and Dubrach went on the run.   He was eventually captured by the English and imprisoned at Carlisle.   He escaped from there and made his way to Glen Lethnot where he managed to avoid re-capture.   At the age of 100 he cheekily petitioned King George II for a pension and King George, thinking that he wouldn’t live much longer, gave him a pension of one guinea a week.   Well "Dubrach" actually lived to the grand old age of 111 so he did quite well.   Over three hundred people attended his funeral near Braemar and three highland pipers played the Jacobite tune "Wha Widna Fecht Fer Charlie”   But cheekiness must have run in the family because his eldest daughter who had stayed with him, asked if the pension could be transferred to her and this was agreed to.   It is said that she then took on the airs and graces of a lady and considered herself to be a cut above the rest of the glen folk.     Glen Lethnot is also famous for The Battle of Saughs which involved a fight between Ledenhendrie (John Macintosh) and a group of Caterans led by one particular unnamed Cateran who was an orphan and had been adopted by other Caterans after being left on the doorstep of a house at Muir of Pearsie in Kingoldrum in the late seventeenth century.   By 1708 this man, who was now known as  “Hawkit Stirk”, or “moaning calf” had risen to become chief of a sizeable band of desperadoes and was carrying out raids on lowland villages.   Around that time a party of 13 caterans went to the village of Fern, late on a Sunday night, and made off with all the cattle and sheep.   Shortly afterwards Ledenhendrie got the men of the village together and pointed out their two options – either they pursued the catarans and retrieved their property or they did nothing – in which case the catarans would see them as a soft touch and come back again.   They decided to take action and eighteen of them set off in pursuit – catching up with the catarans bedside the Water of Saughs near the head of Glen Lethnot.   As was the custom Ledenhendrie challenged the Hawkit Stirk to single combat but, as they were fighting, one of the catarans shot dead one of the men of Fern and a full scale battle ensued.   One of the Fern men, James Winter, proved himself a valuable ally to Ledenhendrie when he hamstrung the Hawkit Stirk from behind in the thick of battle, allowing Ledenhendrie to despatch his victim.   The men of Fern won the battle and returned to Fern with their animals.   One of the Caterans, Donald Young, who was badly wounded in the battle crawled off and died halfway up a nearby hill.   His body was found some time later and that hill was named Shank of Donald Young after him.   James Winter is buried in the churchyard at Cortachy. Opposite the bottom of the glen are the white and brown Caterthuns, two prehistoric hill forts.   The white Caterthun takes its name from the colour of the stones that have fallen from the original walls and the brown Caterthun from the colour of the heather. On the east side of the glen are the Wirren hills, interesting for two reasons.   In centuries past all the suicides in the glen were buried on top of these hills as they could not be buried in consecrated ground and, in more recent history, during WW2 several planes crashed on the Wirren hills because there was a navigational training school at Montrose airfield and, if the pilots got it wrong, the Wirrens were the first high hills in their path.