Birnam is a village in the Highland part of Perth and Kinross, which grew up in the 19th century as a resort town when the railway reached it. It's on the west bank of the River Tay, which here makes an S-bend, so it becomes the south bank. It's connected by the 200-year old Telford Bridge to Dunkeld on the east bank. Their combined population in 2019 was 1360.
A few ancient trees are all that remain of the primeval Birnam Wood - the one that marched off to Dunsinane in Shakespeare's play Macbeth - but there are extensive modern woodlands above Craigvinean.
The nearest Tourist Information Centres are in Perth and Pitlochry: the nearby TIC in Dunkeld closed in Nov 2018.
Dunkeld & Birnam Station 📍 is close to the village centre. There are trains every hour or so from Edinburgh, Glasgow Queen St and Stirling via Perth, which continue north to Pitlochry, Aviemore and Inverness. (Some Inverness trains don't stop here, change at Perth.) The Caledonian Highland Sleeper (for Inverness) runs overnight Sun-F leaving London Euston after 21:00 and dropping off here towards 06:00; the southbound sleeper picks up around 23:00 to reach Euston for 08:00. You might prefer to take the Lowland Sleeper from Euston towards midnight and change at Edinburgh for a daytime train; going south you need to leave Birnam before 21:00 to pick up the southbound sleeper in Edinburgh.
Most of the inter-city buses along the A9 rush past Birnam, so you need to change either in Perth or at Broxden P&R on its outskirts. M91 is a direct bus once daily from Edinburgh via Halbeath (for Fife), Kinross, Broxden P&R and Perth, taking 2 hours to Birnam and continuing to Pitlochry, Blair Atholl, Newtonmore, Kingussie, Aviemore and Inverness.
Stagecoach Bus 23 / 27 runs every hour or so from Perth via Birnam to Aberfeldy or Pitlochry.
Access from the A9 Edinburgh to Inverness road is from junctions at the north and south ends of the village.
Edinburgh Airport is an 80 min drive from Birnam, a taxi might be £80. From the airport take the direct bus to Inverkeithing and get the train to Perth, where you'll probably have to change: the Edinburgh-Inverness trains stop either at Inverkeithing or Birnam but not both. The other route is to take the tram from the airport to Edinburgh Haymarket, then a train to Stirling, change for the Glasgow-Inverness train.
Walking is fine for Birnam, Little Dunkeld and Dunkeld. Buses and trains run up the valley from Perth through Birnam to Pitlochry and Aberfeldy - see "Get in" - but you'll need your own transport to get anywhere else.
Taxi: Birnam Autocabs, based at Perth Road, Birnam. Phone +44 1350 728828.
Macbeth
He was born in 1005 and his full name was Macbeth MacFinlay, ie he was son of Finlay and his Christian name was Macbeth, meaning “righteous” or “son of life”. He was Lord of Moray, a large region stretching up to Sutherland; further north was Viking territory, while to the south lay the Kingdom of Alba. In 1040 King Duncan I of Alba attacked Macbeth, but was defeated and killed at Elgin, so now Macbeth became King of Alba. There’s no contemporary evidence that he was a tyrant, and his reign was secure enough for him to make a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050. But in 1054 the English invaded, his forces were driven back by Duncan’s son the future Malcolm III, and in 1057 Macbeth was slain at Lumphanan near Aberdeen.
Macbeth’s own line died out, whereas Malcolm’s line continued, with King James VI & I among his descendants. So when Shakespeare wanted a royal villain without impugning his own monarch, this was a shrewd choice. The play was written in 1606 and has proved a sure theatre-filler ever since, in multiple productions and adaptions. However circa 1900, a young JRR Tolkien was disappointed by the resolution of the witches’ prophecies:
"Laugh to scorn / the power of man, for none of woman born / shall harm Macbeth."
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill / shall come against him." .
Macbeth is dismayed (spoiler alert) when Birnam Wood appears to advance, but in truth it doesn’t: it’s just the oncoming army using branches as camouflage. And he’s finally killed by Macduff, who "was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped." So, something like a Caesarean birth – but Macduff would still be "of woman born."
Tolkien reckoned Shakespeare had fudged it, so in Lord of The Rings he does better. The Ents are a real forest marching upon the sorcerer Saruman at Isengard. And the Witch-king of the Nazgûl, who is unassailable since "not by the hand of man shall he fall", is slain by Éowyn and Merry, ie by a woman and a Hobbit.
Not much here, people do their main shopping in Perth (and you'd do well to refuel there).
You'll probably do better in Dunkeld.
Birnam has 4G from all UK carriers, which extends to Dunkeld and along the A9 through the Tay valley. As of Sept 2021, 5G has not reached this area.
2nd-order administrative division
Primary administrative division