Community, heritage and the Highland edge
Gartmore
An eighteenth-century planned estate village where a community-owned inn, listed landmarks and a seven-mile cycle loop meet the Highland Boundary Fault.
- Village pattern
- Eighteenth-century planned estate village
- Local ride
- Seven-mile Aberfoyle–Gartmore cycle loop
- Landscape line
- The Highland Boundary Fault
The Fox verdict
A compact village with an unusually strong community story
Come for the planned-village landmarks, the seven-mile cycle loop and the Black Bull, then widen the day with the island ruins of Inchmahome Priory.
Gartmore brings together an eighteenth-century estate layout, the 1790 church and Village Gate, the memorial to Cunninghame Graham and a pub bought by villagers in 2019. The Highland Boundary Fault and the Aberfoyle–Gartmore cycle loop give the heritage a clear landscape setting.
Where to go
Places in Gartmore
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Black Bull
Gartmore's only surviving pub, bought by villagers in 2019, with traditional Scottish and contemporary food, a beer garden and a Heritage Room.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- overlooking The Square
- Access
- Dogs are welcome in the bar, Heritage Rooms and Green Room, but not the main restaurant; notify the pub in advance when dining with a dog.
Gartmore Village Gate
A crenellated, semi-circular estate arch erected in 1790 at the north-east end of Main Street.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 20 minutes
- Locality
- north-east end of Main Street
Inchmahome Priory
Ruins of an Augustinian priory founded around 1238 on a wooded island, reached by boat across Scotland's only lake.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 150 minutes
- Locality
- Port of Menteith
Walks & outdoors
1 placeAberfoyle–Gartmore Cycle Loop
An easy seven-mile loop from Aberfoyle through Gartmore, using the disused railway, minor roads and farm tracks and passing the Cunninghame Graham Memorial.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 180 minutes
- Locality
- Aberfoyle–Gartmore
- Access
- The route has a mixed surface and is about 50% traffic-free.
History & heritage
1 placeCunninghame Graham Memorial
A stone memorial to Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the last Graham laird, politician, writer, traveller and horseman known as Don Roberto.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 20 minutes
- Locality
- in the village
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Three ways to explore Gartmore
Signature outings
The 1790 Village Gate
See the crenellated, semi-circular estate arch at the north-east end of Main Street, where it has stood since 1790.
The Aberfoyle–Gartmore Loop
Follow the seven-mile cycle loop along the disused railway, minor roads and farm tracks; about half of the route is traffic-free.
The Last Graham Laird
Riding south through Gartmore on the Aberfoyle–Gartmore cycle loop, watch for the memorial on your left before the T-junction.
The village story
Gartmore Village Guide
A community-owned inn, an eighteenth-century planned village and the meeting line between Lowland fields and Highland country.
A Pub Bought by Its Village
The Black Bull stands over The Square in the middle of Gartmore, a three-storey inn that has poured drink on this spot since at least 1740. The villagers bought it themselves in 2019, refurbished it and added a Heritage Room; it is now the only pub left in a place that used to have two. Schiehallion is kept on tap alongside a rotating guest beer from small Scottish breweries and the pub's own Black Bull Lager, and there is a beer garden for the afternoons that permit one. Dogs are welcome in the bar, the Heritage Rooms and the Green Room, though not the main restaurant, and the kitchen asks you to say in advance if you are bringing one. The food runs from traditional Scottish cooking to lighter contemporary plates.
The pub keeps one wartime detail. Gartmore sat beside the AW25 munitions depot, and a secret telephone beneath the bar would alert the landlord to sound a hidden air-raid siren. "It's one of the most crazy, heartwarming adventures I've had – we've bought the pub," said the journalist Melanie Reid of the purchase.
The Planned Village and Its Church
The village around it is a planned one, set out by the Graham family in the eighteenth century along a Highland cattle-droving route that ran down to Falkirk. Main Street climbs from both ends to meet at The Square, so the roofline never quite settles into the straight lines the formal layout intended. At the north-east end a crenellated semi-circular estate arch, the Village Gate, has stood since 1790.
Gartmore Church went up the same year, a five-bay chapel of ease, and H and D Barclay recast it in 1904, adding the central porch and bellcote. Inside there is an 1800 bell, a semi-octagonal timber pulpit carved with putti, a four-column font and early-twentieth-century stained glass given by the Cayzer family. The earliest gravestone in the walled churchyard is dated 1793.
Fault-Line Views and the Cycle Loop
The land itself changes here. Gartmore sits on the Highland Boundary Fault, where the enclosed Lowland fields and small woods to the south and east give way to steeper hills, lochs and forest to the north and west. From the village you can pick out the Campsie Fells to the south, the Menteith Hills to the north, Ben Lomond to the west and the flat expanse of Flanders Moss to the east.
National Cycle Route 7 passes through Gartmore, and the seven-mile Aberfoyle–Gartmore cycle loop follows the disused railway, minor roads and farm tracks past the memorial to Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, the last Graham laird, who wrote and travelled under the name Don Roberto and sold the estate to the shipping magnate Sir Charles Cayzer in 1900. About half the loop is traffic-free.
Getting There and Community Life
Gartmore lies just off the A81, roughly twenty miles from Stirling and twenty-four from Glasgow; the X10A bus stops inside the village at the church and the football park. The nearest trains are at Dunblane and Stirling, the local station having closed in 1950.
The community shop that more than a hundred residents established in 1998 closed in 2022, and its former building was approved for conversion to a dwelling. A village shop now operates from a room in the village hall. Gartmore Community Trust runs the hall, play park and football field and helps fund Gala Day and Bonfire Night. The hall hosts indoor carpet bowls; Summer Ice, once played in a local league, is not currently running.
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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.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Black Bull — blackbullgartmore.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Gartmore Village Gate — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- Cunninghame Graham Memorial — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- Aberfoyle–Gartmore Cycle Loop — routes2ride.org.uk other published source
- Inchmahome Priory — historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access