Alloa, a small industrial town on the north bank of the river Forth, has been the county town of Clackmannanshire since 1822, when it took over the county town duties from Clackmannan. It was created a Burgh of Barony in 1497. It used to be a seaport, exporting coal, salt and tobacco to the Low Countries. In 1772 it exported almost one third of Scotland's total coal production. In the 1850's it was handling two thousand ships per year. However, silting, the port's location upstream of Kincardine Bridge and alternative forms of transport eventually made the harbour redundant.
Alloa's industry once consisted of woolen mills, glass works, mining, brewing, distilling and engineering. Alloa was the home of the Erskines of Mar, who built Alloa Tower. The Erskines, later created Earls of Mar, were once one of the most influential families in Scotland, and the 6th Earl, John, was Secretary of State for Scotland under Queen Anne.
The Alloa burgh boundaries were extended out in the 1890s to include Shaftesbury Street and Hill Street's western extension, then known as Viewfield Place, but it was only in 1926 that approval was given for the 120-house scheme covering the Moir Street and Garvally Crescent area. The council scheme at Inglewood was not developed until the 1950s.
Parochially, Alloa was linked with Tullibody, now the second largest population centre in Clackmannanshire after Alloa. The areas are distinct, albeit with Lornshill in the middle, and Alloa is about twice the size of its north-western neighbour. The population of Alloa was estimated to be approximately 20,730 residents in 2016.
Alloa grew up under the protection of Alloa Tower. The name of the town has had different spellings at different periods. In the charter granted by King Robert the Bruce in the year 1315, to Thomas de Erskyne, it is called Alway; in some subsequent ones, Aulway, Auleway; and more recently Alloway.
Sir Robert Erskine was granted the lands of Alloa and its environs in 1368 for services to King David II and he and his descendants were good stewards, developing the estates and innovating.
John Erskine, the 6th Earl of Mar oversaw many far-reaching developments including substantial harbour improvements, a customs house, an area of housing and commissioning the building of the Gartmorn Dam, which was later further improved by George Sorocold. Erskine owned many of the coal mines, and Robert Bald, a local mining engineer, was contracted to provide water power from the Gartmorn Dam to operate the mines and other industries. Good water supplies and the availability of barley from the carselands encouraged George Younger to set up a brewery in the 1760s and he was soon followed by others. Alloa became one of Scotland's premier brewing centres.
The 6th Earl of Mar was forced to flee the country and forfeit his lands after disastrously backing the Jacobite cause in 1715. However, his brother was allowed to purchase the forfeited lands and future generations continued the tradition of creative industry by launching a glassworks in 1750 and laying one of Scotland's earliest railways (a waggonway) from his Sauchie mines to down to the harbour around 1766.
The Clackmannashire Library was founded at Alloa in 1797 and it contained upwards of 1500 volumes. As the 18th century closed a whisky distillery was established at Carsebridge by John Bald.
In 1813 the first steamboat started to operate out of Alloa harbour. Rival companies later united into the "Stirling, Alloa and Kincardine Steamboat Company". In 1822 mains water was brought into the town and in 1828 a gas works was built. The original Alloa Academy was built in 1824, being paid for by subscription. The Alloa Swing Bridge (a rail bridge over the Forth) was opened to the public on 1 October 1885. The population was 5,434 in the 1841 census.
Wool was also locally plentiful and in the early part of the 19th century. John Paton set up a small yarn-spinning business in the town, later establishing the Kilncraigs Mill. Much of the Kilncraigs complex has since been demolished, making way for a Tesco store, but a four-storey Edwardian Baroque block of 1903–4 survives, with an extension built in 1936. The buildings were converted to Council offices by LDN architects in 2003/4. Patons merged with J. & J. Baldwin of Halifax in 1924 to become Paton & Baldwins Ltd.
Alloa has long been associated with the brewing industry, with at least nine major breweries producing ales at its height. However industrial decline during the late 20th century has led to the economy relying more on retail and leisure. The first brewing firms in the town were Younger in 1762 and Meiklejohn in 1784. Alloa ale was sent to London and George Younger had an extensive export trade to the West Indies, Egypt and the Far East. Alloa was also home to Alloa Brewery Co, developing Graham's Golden Lager in 1927, which was renamed Skol in the 1950s. Closures and mergers during the mid-20th century reduced the number of breweries to two and by 1999 after the closure of MacLay's Thistle Brewery in the town, only one remained, the Forth Brewery which became Williams Bros. in 2003.
Alloa is the site of the former Carsebridge Distillery, which was founded as a malt distillery by John Bald in 1799. In the 1840s it was converted into a grain distillery and by the time of Barnard's visit in the mid 1880s the distillery covered 10 acres, employed 150 people, and had an annual output of 1.4 to 1.7 million gallons of pure grain whisky. The distillery's owner John Bald and Co was one of five companies that combined to form the Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1877. In 1902, a fire devastated the distillery, after World War I it was refitted and started producing yeast. This yeast production lasted until 1938. In 1956 the distillery was modernised, it expanded in 1966 and in the 1970s a new still house, cooperage and animal feedstuffs plant added. By 1980 the Carsebridge Distillery was the largest grain distillery in Scotland, however it closed in 1983 and was demolished in 1992. One of the distillery's Coffey stills is now in use at the Cameronbridge Distillery in Leven, now Europe's largest grain distillery.
After whisky ceased to be produced at Carsebridge, the cooperage remained as one of two owned by Diageo in Scotland. In 2008, 30 people worked there assembling or repairing up to 400 bourbon casks, imported from the US, each day. However, in 2009 the company announced that it intended to close the Carsebridge Cooperage and move the work to nearby Cambus. The new Cambus cooperage was opened in December 2011 by the Earl of Wessex. The Carsebridge cooperage and the remaining bonded storage buildings were completely demolished by 2022.
The town formerly contained a large number of 17th and 18th century buildings, but many were cleared with the expansion of mill operations and later with slum clearance in the 20th century. However, Alloa does retain some historic architecture in the form of Alloa Tower, Tobias Bauchop's House (1695), Inglewood House, Gean House and Greenfield House. Alloa Town Hall was designed by the architect Alfred Waterhouse and built in 1886-9 at a cost of £18,008. The Speirs Centre was built as Alloa's swimming pool in 1895 and was designed by Sir John Burnet of Glasgow. The Sheriff Court is by Brown and Wardrop of 1862–5. Alloa War Memorial (designed 1920 erected 1925) is by Sir Robert Lorimer with sculpture by Pilkington Jackson. The monument to the South African War is also by Lorimer (1904).
After the closure of the Stirling-Alloa-Dunfermline line in 1968 and the Devon Valley Railway in 1973, the town had no passenger railway services for 40 years until 2008. The Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine rail link project was completed in May 2008. The laying of new track had commenced in September 2006 after much preparatory work, including new drainage works and the grouting of a large number of shallow mine workings. The project also involved the construction of a new bypass road, and a footbridge which replaced a level crossing in the town.