A Walk up Balmashanner
There is quite a steep part to this walk, so be warned! Binoculars are recommended.
Leaving the Cross, go through the Pend, past the old Swimming Pool. At the top of the Vennel, turn right and go past Strathmore Primary School. First left after that is Reid Park Road. Go along there and up the steps into Reid Park. A path on the left will take you past the statue of Peter Reid, confectioner and ex-Provost, who gifted the park (along with the Reid Hall), to the people of Forfar.
The bandstand was erected in 1900 and the park was a regular meeting place for the workers from the six mills which existed in Forfar at that time.
At the top of the park there is a doorway which you can go through and follow the path right up to the top of the hill. Turn right and you will find the War Memorial, designed by architect Thomas Robert Soutar and built in 1921 by Alexander Adamson Jr with joinery work by David Stewart. to commemorate the town’s servicemen who died in the First World War. From there you gain a panoramic view of the Strathmore Valley.
In 1892, while ploughing a field behind Balmashanner, a ploughman discovered a Bronze Age burial pit. Its stone lid was broken and in it was a late Bronze Age King/Chieftain’s remains. It held bones, a bronze bowl, bronze bracelets, axes and amber and jet beads. All the artifacts are now stored in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh and are known as The Balmashanner Hoard.
If you carry on past the monument, you will go through the quarries where the slates of many of Forfar’s houses came from and return to Dundee Road. Turn right and you will head back into town.
Alternatively, turn back and you will find a viewpoint and octagonal shelter also gifted by James Anderson (1929). To get back into town, head down the path onto Lour Road. You will pass many fine mansions, but note at 72A The Hollies a cairn built into the wall which is believed to be the final resting place of King Feredith of the Picts who died in the Battle of Restenneth. When you get to the end of Lour Road, cross into the Vennel and it will bring you back to the Cross.
