A village in Glen Almond, central Perth and Kinross, Harrietfield lies to the north of the River Almond, 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Perth. A Free Church here, closed in 1995, was the charge of John Watson (1850 - 1907) who wrote under the name Ian Maclaren. His book of Perthshire tales published in 1894 and entitled 'Beside the bonnie brier bush' opens with the couplet:
"There grows a bonnie brier bush in our kail-yard,
And white are the blossoms on't in our kail-yard."
It was the word kail-yard spotted here by the critics that subsequently came to be applied to a whole genre of Scottish writing characterised by an idealised representation of rural life.
