Perthshire enjoyed a brief brush with the glamour of the entertainment industry over the last few days when a mystery film production got under way.
With all the subtlety of a crowd of elephants, a travelling circus of luxurious mobile homes marked Movie Makers sneaked into the area and set up camp in the unlikely setting of a farm yard near Ballathie.
The arrival sent the local rumour mill into overdrive but few clues were given about what was being filmed other than it was a major production given the scale of the operation.
When the encampment arrived in Perth things were no clearer until a crew member let the cat out of the bag with a tweet pronouncing satisfaction with a good day’s filming of Outlander in Perthshire.
For the uninitiated Outlander is a British-American television drama series based on a series of novels by Diana Gabaldon and has a loyal and fanatical following running into many millions.
A preposterous mixture of hokum involving a time-travelling World War II nurse who finds herself transported back to Scotland in 1743 and into the arms of a Highland warrior, it can nevertheless have considerable benefits to any locations associated with the show.
Tibbermore church has enjoyed many more visitors than it otherwise would if it hadn’t featured as the setting for a witches trial in the show and Drummond Castle gardens (which doubled for the Palace of Versaille) now feature as a must see for devotees when they are in Scotland.
Quite which locations will benefit from the televisual Midas touch probably won’t become apparent until the latest series airs but allegedly a Bridge of Earn holiday chalet (apparently doubling as an American home) may just have been sprinkled with stardust in terms of future demand from fans.
If that rumour proves to be true it will join a lengthy list of locations across Courier country including Loch Rannoch, Doune, Crieff, Falkland, Dysart and Culross, which have benefited from the “Outlander effect”.
