West Mill

The ruins of West Mill sit quietly on the outskirts of Blairgowrie, a reminder of the area's industrial past that most visitors drive straight past. What remains is essentially a handful of stone walls and foundations - the skeleton of a grain mill that once processed cereals from the surrounding Perthshire farmland. It's not dramatic, and it won't hold your attention for hours, but there's something honest about standing among the rubble and trying to picture the machinery, the workers, the carts arriving with grain.

The site appeals most to archaeology enthusiasts and local history buffs rather than casual tourists. If you're the type who enjoys reading old maps and imagining how places worked two hundred years ago, you'll find it worthwhile. Families with young kids might find it underwhelming - there's no interpretation board, no café, just old stone. Allow twenty minutes, tops.

Visiting from one of the nearby holiday parks - Blairgowrie Holiday Park is closest at 1.6 miles - you could incorporate West Mill into a broader ramble around the town and surrounding countryside. It's free to access and you can turn up whenever suits you. The real draw of staying in this part of Tayside is the walking and the soft fruit farms, not the archaeology, but if you're already in Blairgowrie, West Mill makes a decent five-minute detour on the way to somewhere else.