Gateway to the Glens
Kirriemuir
Red-sandstone streets, Peter Pan landmarks and walks towards the Angus Glens.
- Best for
- J. M. Barrie, local history and walking
- Give it
- A town day, with extra time for the glens
- Don't miss
- Star Rock made on the premises
Photo: Kevin Waterhouse · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
A small town with unusually big stories
Kirriemuir brings together a long-lived sweet-making tradition, J. M. Barrie's legacy, Bon Scott memorials and the Angus Glens behind the town.
Start with Star Rock on the Roods, follow the town's Barrie and weaving stories, then choose between the Camera Obscura on the Hill and a nearby walk to Airlie Monument or Reekie Linn.
Where to go
Places in Kirriemuir
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesJ. M. Barrie's Birthplace
The National Trust for Scotland cares for the birthplace of Peter Pan creator J. M. Barrie, born here in 1860 into a weaving family.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 75 minutes
- Locality
- on Brechin Road
Neverland Play Park
Opened for the 150th anniversary of Barrie's birth, the park has Peter Pan-themed equipment including a Lost Boys hideout, pirate ship, crocodile and aerial slide.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 75 minutes
- Locality
- on Kirriemuir Hill / Northmuir
Bon Scott Statue
The life-sized bronze commemorates AC/DC frontman Bon Scott, who grew up in Kirriemuir before his family emigrated to Australia in 1952.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 20 minutes
- Locality
- in a memorial garden on Bellies Brae
Food & drink
1 placeStar Rock Shop
Scotland's oldest sweet shop makes its original light-lemon Star Rock and popular Horehound on the premises from a secret recipe created in 1833.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 20 minutes
- Locality
- in the Roods
Walks & outdoors
2 placesAirlie Monument
A 3km easy walk reaches the 65ft stone tower, whose top gives a 360-degree view across Glen Clova and Glen Prosen and south towards Kirriemuir and Forfar.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: About 45 minutes
- Locality
- on Tulloch Hill at the foot of Glens Clova and Prosen
Reekie Linn
A well-regarded waterfall on the River Isla, reached by a short drive north-west from Kirriemuir.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 45 minutes
- Locality
- on the River Isla, a short drive north-west
History & heritage
1 placeGateway to the Glens Museum
The museum and the Town House tell Kirriemuir's handloom-weaving story; the Town House dates to 1604 and has a distinctive small tower.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 60 minutes
- Locality
- in Kirriemuir
Things to do
2 places
Kirriemuir Camera Obscura
One of only three camera obscuras in Scotland, it occupies the cricket pavilion Barrie gifted and projects a rotating 360-degree panorama onto a circular screen.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 45 minutes
- Locality
- on the Hill beside the Neverland park
Peter Pan Statue
A statue of Peter Pan stands in the town centre, marking Kirriemuir's connection with the character's creator, J. M. Barrie.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 15 minutes
- Locality
- in the town centre / town square
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Three ways to explore Kirriemuir
Signature outings
Star Rock from the Roods
Visit the shop that has made its light-lemon Star Rock on the same premises for nearly 200 years.
Barrie's Camera Obscura
See the Camera Obscura project a rotating 360-degree panorama onto its circular screen.
The Airlie Monument view
Walk up Tulloch Hill to the stone tower and views across Glen Clova and Glen Prosen.
The town story
Kirriemuir Town Guide
Sweet-making, red sandstone, two famous sons and the glens opening behind the town.
Rock and the Gateway to the Glens
On the Roods, a sweet shop has been making rock from the same premises for nearly 200 years. The Star Rock Shop works from a recipe that is 193 years old and, they insist, secret — the original a light lemon flavour, though Horehound runs it close. The man who invented it in 1833 was a mason who had been blinded and needed a new trade. It is the oldest sweet shop in Scotland, and it is still just a shop on a narrow street.
The town centre is built of red sandstone and laid out in winding streets with a one-way system to keep them intact. Kirriemuir calls itself the Gateway to the Glens, and the geography backs it up: it sits on the north edge of the Strathmore valley with the Cairngorms on the horizon and the Angus Glens — Clova, Prosen, Isla and Moy — opening up behind it.
Town Tables and Shops
For its size, the town drinks well. "Kirrie's been famed for its pubs and hotels and the likes of the Airlie, Thrums, Gairie and Three Bellies Brae are still going strong," a local told The Courier. The Airlie Arms is the family-run hotel in the middle of it, doing steak pie, potato soup and apple crumble, with a rotating set of weekday deals — 25% off pasta on Mondays, two battered Arbroath haddock suppers for £24 on Tuesdays. It's dog friendly and it gets busy, so book. The Thrums Hotel runs traditional music sessions every Tuesday and takes its name, like a good deal of the town, from J.M. Barrie.
The town still supports two independent butchers, which for a place this size is worth noting.
Barrie and Bon Scott
Barrie was born on Brechin Road in 1860, the ninth of ten children in a weaving family. His brother David died in a skating accident when Barrie was six; the grief that followed is generally held to be behind the boy who wouldn't grow up. He called the town "Thrums" in his novels, gifted it a cricket pavilion in 1930, and remains the only person ever granted the Freedom of Kirriemuir. The pavilion now houses a camera obscura, one of only three in Scotland, which rotates a 360-degree view of the surrounding country onto a circular screen. Beside it is the Neverland Play Park, with a pirate ship, a crocodile and a Lost Boys hideout.
The other famous son is Bon Scott, later of AC/DC, born in nearby Forfar in 1946 and raised here until the family emigrated in 1952. A life-sized bronze of him stands in a memorial garden on Bellies Brae, unveiled in 2016, and every year the town holds BonFest, three days of bands from around the world.
Walks and Ways In
The walking is the point of the place. The Airlie Monument, a 65ft tower on Tulloch Hill, is a two-mile climb for a view down Glen Clova and Glen Prosen. Beyond it lie Loch Brandy, Corrie Fee and Reekie Linn, a waterfall on the River Isla a short drive out.
Dundee is twelve miles off; the town's own station closed to passengers in 1952 and is gone. The bus from Dundee takes about fifty minutes and stops in the Square, where a statue of Peter Pan stands.
Stay around Angus
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Angus, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
Third-party photographs are credited to their named creators and reused under the linked Creative Commons licence or public-domain dedication. Travel Fox stores an optimised local copy; the file-specific changes and any browser-applied display crop are disclosed below. Reused photographs link both to the Wikimedia Commons source record and to the declared source image; Travel Fox's own photographs carry no such record and are marked as ours. These image licences do not cover Travel Fox text, branding or page design.
- File:Kirriemuir Camera Obscura in 1992 - geograph.org.uk - 7140142.jpg — photograph by Kevin Waterhouse; Kirriemuir Camera Obscura in 1992 by Kevin Waterhouse. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Star Rock Shop — starrockshop.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- J. M. Barrie's Birthplace — nts.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Kirriemuir Camera Obscura — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Neverland Play Park — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Bon Scott Statue — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Peter Pan Statue — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Gateway to the Glens Museum — angusalive.scot other published source
- Airlie Monument — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Reekie Linn — visitangus.com operator, sector body or destination organisation