The Watermill

When Kevin and Jayne Ramage turned a derelict oatmeal mill on Aberfeldy's Mill Street into a bookshop in 2005, they built something that punched far above a Highland Perthshire town of a few thousand people: named the UK's Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2009, listed by the New Yorker among the seventy-five greatest bookshops in the world in 2016 — the only Scottish entry — and picked out by National Geographic in 2022. The Ramages retired in 2024 after nineteen years and sold to two locals, John Argo and Keith Moncrieff, who have kept the whole of it going: books across two floors, a café, a contemporary art gallery, and a homeware shop called Homer next door. It is the rare bookshop that is a reason in itself to make the drive up the A9 — coffee and a novel by the Tay, with an exhibition to walk round afterwards. Nineteen years built the reputation; the new owners inherited the job of not spoiling it, and so far the doors are open and the coffee is on.