A mirrored human figure stands at the water's edge, holding the loch and the hills behind it in its surface. It is called Still, the work of the sculptor Rob Mulholland, and it marks the start of both walks that leave the village. You are at the eastern end of Loch Earn, seven miles of water running west between the hills, with the River Earn draining out past you toward Comrie. Ben Vorlich, nearly a thousand metres of it, sits across the loch and takes up most of the view.
The village runs along the shore in a single line. Low stone cottages sit beside grander Victorian villas with decorative bargeboards and planted gardens, the loch to the south and the embankment of a closed railway to the north. It is the built record of a fishing clachan that Lord Gwydyr renamed in 1817, releasing land along the shore for development and attracting summer and retirement villas.
For food and a drink, the Four Seasons Hotel looks out over the water. Seasons Snug is the public bar; Seasons View, its restaurant, is open to non-residents and has a beer garden, an indoor fire and the loch in front of it. The afternoon tea runs to Scottish smoked-salmon and Scottish-cheese sandwiches, handmade fruit scones, shortbread and tablet, and recent dinners have brought out scallops, Scottish lamb, a local Wagyu burger and a summer-berry bread-and-butter pudding. Dogs are welcome, and stay free if you bring them for the night.
Achray House, a little along the shore, is a restaurant-with-rooms rather than a pub, holding two AA Rosettes for cooking built on classic French technique. It serves a set three- or five-course menu that changes rather than promising named dishes, and the wine list is worth the attention: the general manager, Claire, assembled it after her WSET studies and found room for bottles from London and Japan. Pets are allowed in the conservatory.
The St Fillans Village Store and Coffee Shop handles the rest. It bakes its own scones and sandwiches, does Danish pastries and bacon rolls, stocks local eggs, bread and vegetables, sells wine and beer, and issues the fishing permits for the brown trout in the loch.
Two of the walks start from Still. One climbs Dundurn, or St Fillans Hill, three miles over lanes and golf course to a faint, steep summit with Strathearn spread below; the final field is often deeply boggy, so wear the right boots. The other rises through birch and conifer to the surge shaft of the hidden hydro station, where water from Glen Lednock drops to turbines underground, and comes back along the old railway past the playpark. A shorter contour path behind the village, the Goats' Path, has a section of loose scree and the chance of red squirrel, deer or osprey.
The nine-hole golf course lies on flat ground across the river, opened in 1903 to a shot struck by the Countess of Ancaster; Sandy Lyle holds its record with a 66. Wild goats live on the hills around Dundurn, and the club took one for its crest.
East of the village, painted on a rock on the old railway line, is a crocodile. The Strathearn Herald, in 1964, after the Beatles spent two quiet nights at the hotel, decided the village's chief asset was its peace: "The quiet of St. Fillans is the place to get it."