This book, published in 1915, gives a secular statistical account of Clackmannanshire and Kinross. This excerpt of the book deals with the Clackmannanshire area only.
Scanned PDF versions of the original book are available for free on the internet.
CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES SCOTLAND
General Editor : W. MURISON, M.A.
CLACKMANNAN AND KINROSS by J. P. DAY, B.A., B.Sc.
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society ;
Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society ;
Examiner in Geography in the University of London
Cambridge : at the University Press 1915
Clackmannanshire
1. County and Shire.
The Origin of Clackmannanshire.
For administrative purposes Great Britain is now divided into a number of separate areas known as counties, whose boundaries are based upon older territorial divisions. The older divisions were, in many cases, known as shires, a name signifying a portion of land under the control of some distinct authority, and derived from Anglo-Saxon soir, office, charge, administration. The historical development of the modern county from the ancient shire has not, however, been uniform ; there are counties which were never called shires, and there were shires which have not become counties, such, for example, as the Bishopshire, a district almost coincident with the present parish of Portmoak, in Kinross-shire, which was formerly church land under the control of the Bishop of St Andrews. Generally speaking, however, the Anglo-Saxon shire came to mean the district under the rule of an ealdorman or earl, a title superseded later by comes or count; hence the name county. Within this district there was a permanent direct representative of the King : the vice-comes, shire-reeve or sheriff. In England the course of constitutional development tended to increase the power of the central authority and, from the time of William I, the earl or count becomes a titular grandee rather than a viceroy, the actual power passing to the royal officer, the sheriff, and later to the justices. In Scotland the development was different ; the royal power was not strong enough to prevent the great feudal lords from capturing the office of sheriff, which, as in Gascony, became in many cases hereditary in certain families till the abolition of all heritable jurisdictions in 1748.
Between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, and separated on the west from the rest of Scotland by the high barrier of the Ochils, lies the peninsula of Fife. Though distinctly one natural geographical region, this peninsula contains three counties : Fife, occupying almost four-fifths of the whole ; and, occupying the remaining portion, Clackmannan and Kinross, the two smallest counties of Scotland. When we remember that the counties of Scotland are administrative areas formed by historical development upon the basis of old territorial divisions, it seems strange that this clearly-defined peninsula, anciently known by the one name of Ross, should have become subdivided into three counties ; nor is it easy to discover at what period Clackmannan first came to possess the status of an independent county. The area styled Clackmannanshire has varied in extent from time to time ; while, for administrative and judicial purposes, the shire has been united first to one and then to another of the adjacent counties. For parliamentary representation it is united with the shire of Kinross ; but, as regards the Sheriff's jurisdiction, though, curiously enough, Clackmannan never appears in recent tines to have been united with Fife, we find it joined with Kinross in 1807, with Linlithgow in 1853, and, since 1870, with Dumbarton and Stirling. Such frequent chancres of jurisdiction are among the disadvantages which result when the administrative area is not coincident with a natural region ; and this same cause has led to the alterations in the county boundaries.
Their most recent readjustment was made by the Boundary Commissioners in 1891. Previously the county contained four parishes : Alloa, Clackmannan, Dollar and Tillicoultry, and portions of the parishes of Logie and Stirling. The Clackmannan portion of Stirling parish [Cambuskenneth] was transferred to Stirlingshire. The Clackmannan portion of Logie parish was divided into three parts. One was transferred to the Stirlingshire parish of Logie ; a second was united with the parish of Alva, which was wholly given to Clackmannanshire ; while the third part was absorbed by the parish of Alloa.
The county takes its name from the small town of Clackmannan, which, for this reason, has some claim to be considered the county town, though Alloa, with a population nine times as large, is the chief burgh and the centre. The name Clackmannan is of Gaelic origin. Clachan signifies the stones, and, being frequently used of the stones which mark a burial ground, it came to signify the church, and, finally, the kirkton or village. Clackmannan or Clachan-Mannan is generally accepted as meaning the stone circle, or village, of the ancient district called Manann, which lay at the head of the Forth estuary. Stirling and the valleys focussed at Stirling were the essential parts of the district, which extended towards the hills to boundaries, not precisely known and probably always indefinite. Slamannan - signifying the moor of Manann - is the name of a village and parish some four miles south of Falkirk. What may be termed the "nodality" of Stirling made it more and more the geographical centre of the district, and so the
greater part of Manann came to be called Stirlingshire.
That part, however, which stretches between the Ochils and the Forth towards Fife was to a certain extent more secluded than the other radial carses, its western entry being blocked by the Abbey Craig. In the saddle between the Abbey Craig and the Ochils lay forests, marshes and lakes ; between the steep southern face of the Craig and the river lay but a narrow band of undrained marshy ground. Shut off by such obstacles from easy communication with the rest of Manann, Clackmannan never became included in Stirlingshire. That it also remained excluded from Fife is perhaps due to somewhat similar obstacles on its eastern border. From the then marshy valley of the Devon below King's Seat Hill to Longannet Point on the Forth, there formerly stretched a belt of alternating woodland and marsh, whose position is indicated by Tulliallan Forest and Bogside in the Fifeshire parish of Tulliallan, and by The Forest in the parish of Clackmannan. This small area, shut in by the Ochils, the Forth, the forested land and the Abbey Craig, came to be known as Clacknmnnanshire. But these natural boundaries no longer delimit the county to-day. The marshes have been drained and the natural forests almost entirely cut down ; the western boundary no longer reaches to the Abbey Craig; while the northern boundary extends so far beyond the edge of the plain as to include a hilly upland area almost as large as that of the low-lying ground. Only on the southern side is the ancient natural boundary yet maintained, the county still extending to, but not passing beyond, the river Forth.
2. Position.
General Characteristics. Size. Boundaries.
Clackmannanshire is the southern threshold of the Fife peninsula as Newburgh is the northern. The Ochil range, rising to over 700 feet within a mile of the Tay at Newburgh, runs across the base of the peninsula to end abruptly in the lofty hills which overlook the valley of the lower Devon from Dollar to Menstrie. This continuous band of uplands presents a barrier to communication between the Fife peninsula and the rest of Scotland. It is true that the Ochils are traversed near their centre by a road which, passing up Glen Devon, crosses the water-parting at a height of 750 feet above sea-level and follows the narrow and deep trench of Glen Eagles to Strathearn ; but most of the traffic prefers the easier routes into the peninsula, on the north side by Glen Farg or Newburgh, on the south side through Clackmannanshire. The first place up the river Forth at which a bridge for foot passengers has been built is at Stirling, and there, from all parts of the lowlands of Scotland, are focussed roads which pass eastwards between the steep edge of the Ochils and the Forth along the narrow plain of Clackmannan into Fife.
This position of Clackmannanshire as the southern gate of Fife has had a persistent influence on the importance and prosperity of the county ; but the influence has tended to diminish. An alternative means of entry into Fife from the south is the ferry across the Forth ; and from the earliest times much of the traffic, particularly the passenger traffic from the capital, has gone by the Queensferry passage. The expense and inconvenience, necessarily attending the change from land to water carriage, and the often stormy character of the Firth, would operate to preserve for the longer route by Stirling and Clackmannan a considerable share of the southern traffic, but, with the development of a really efficient and reliable ferry service, this share has become less. To-day a regular ferry service is maintained at four points : from Granton to Burntisland ; between the Queensferries ; at Kincardine ; and at Alloa. A more serious competitor arose with the construction of the railway bridges. The traffic from the south now passes into Fife mainly by the Forth Bridge, between which and Stirling another railway, from Glasgow, crosses the river to the south of Alloa. Thus, though the southern traffic with Fife has been largely diverted from the route through Clackmannanshire, the stream of the important western traffic with the peninsula still passes along the narrow gateway between the Ochils and the Forth.
The position of Clackmannanshire as the southern threshold of Fife is, therefore, a geographical fact of fundamental importance and one which throws light upon the past history of the county and the present economic conditions. The most striking episodes in the history are connected not so much with the deeds of the inhabitants as with those of travellers journeying across the county ; legends of the passing of St Serf or stories of the fiercer transit of Montrose. Again, the characteristic feature of the shire as a thoroughfare has influenced the distribution of the towns and villages, strung out as they all are in one or other of two long lines from west to east : Menstrie, Alva, Tillicoultry, and Dollar on the road to Kinross ; Tullibody, Alloa, and Clackmannan on the road to Dunfermline.
But the importance and prosperity of Clackmannanshire are by no means entirely due to its advantageous position as the southern gate of the peninsula. In itself, the county possesses resources more considerable in value and much greater in variety than its size would lead one to expect. Indeed the variety of its sources of wealth is a very noticeable characteristic. Within its northern confines more than fifteen thousand sheep pasture on the grass-covered slopes of the Ochils; the rich alluvial soils of the Devon and Forth valleys are valuable agricultural land ; the coalfields, which underlie the southern half of the county, provide work for more than thirteen hundred miners and supply a basis for the export trade of Alloa ; more than half the occupied women in the county are engaged in the prosperous woollen industry ; and minor industries, such as brewing and distilling, brick, cement, glass, and pottery works, are not lacking. Mining, manufacturing, agriculture, stock-raising, and commerce, all contribute to make Clackmannanshire, in proportion to its size, one of the wealthiest counties of Scotland.
The total area of Clackmannanshire is 35,214 acres, or, excluding water, 34,927 acres.
It is, indeed, by far the smallest county in the British Isles, as may be seen by a comparison with the smallest counties of England, Wales, and Ireland - London, 74,817 acres; Flint, 163,025 acres and Carlow 221,424 acres. The average size of a Scottish county is 577,893 acres, or more than sixteen times the size of Clackmannanshire. The greatest length of the county from north to south is nine miles, its greatest breadth from west to east is nearly ten. In shape the shire is compact, and a circle of 4.5 miles radius drawn from Tillicoultry as centre would include practically the whole area. Least of all lands though it is, the men of Clackmannan are proud of their home, and wherever counties compete - whether in cricket or in more serious arenas - have so acquitted themselves as to win for the shire the epithet of "gallant."
On the south-west side the county is bounded for nearly eleven miles by the windings of the river Forth, and this is the only considerable stretch where the modern boundary is a natural one ; elsewhere it is erratic, following neither river valley nor water-parting for more than a mile or so at a time, so that its course is more easily followed on the map than described in words. The north of Clackmannan is bounded by Perthshire, the east by Kinross and Fife, and the west by Stirlingshire. Two islands, Tullibody Inch and Alloa Inch, in the Forth have been detached from the mainland by the meanderings of the river. Both are included in Clackmannanshire, but only the latter is inhabited, its population at the time of the 1911 Census being returned three males and two females.
3. Geology.
From the rocks we may learn of changes of the physical conditions, fluctuations in the climate, and alterations in the elevation, which took place long ages before the advent of man. Enclosed within the rocks of some mountain top are found the fossilised remains of marine creatures, and we know that the land there, now thousands of feet above the sea-level, was once many fathoms beneath it. In the coal seams of a deep mine are seen the decayed and compressed remains of vegetation which once throve exposed to the light and air of the surface. Embedded in a slab of clay is the imprint of a tropical palm, mute witness to a time when these islands experienced a torrid climate ; while from the ice-smoothed rocks of the hill-side we learn that at another period a vast ice-sheet overrode the country. Stupendous changes are these, from ocean depth to mountain top, from tropical conditions to arctic - changes which can be understood aright only when it is remembered that many thousands of years went to every stage of the long history. Not by any violent cataclysm were the former mountains buried, nor was the ocean bed raised by any sudden upheaval ; but the alterations in elevation and the fluctuations of climate were perhaps as slow and imperceptible then as the changes now taking place are to us. It is part of the work of the geologist to attempt to trace the history of these secular changes ; and, for the accomplishment of this, he relies partly upon the position and character of the rocks now exposed, but mainly upon the kind of fossils they contain. From such evidence the world's organic history has been divided into three main stages. The first great period is called the Palaeozoic era, because it includes the earliest forms of life ; the last period is the Cainozoic, with the recent forms of life ; while between these two is the Mesozoic or middle era, though in point of duration the Palaeozoic era was longer than the two later eras of course, some of the Palaeozoic forms are found also in Mesozoic rocks, and Mesozoic forms may continue into Cainozoic times ; but yet these three divisions are separated by periods of change relatively so rapid as to cause a sufficiently distinctive difference in the general characteristics of the organic remains of each division. The Mesozoic era, for example, is especially distinguished by the enormous and wonderful reptiles then existing on the land and in the sea, so that it is sometimes called the Age of Reptiles. These reptilian forms are not preserved except in rocks of Mesozoic age. But it is the Palaeozoic period that concerns us in studying Clackmannan, for the rocks now underlying the soil of the county were originally laid down in that era. We can narrow the age of the different rocks of the Palaeozoic period by subdividing them into groups, named usually from the area where they were first studied or are best developed, like the Cambrian rocks of Wales, but sometimes from the character of the rock itself, like the Old Red Sandstone.
The following table gives the succession of the Palaeozoic rocks, the oldest formation being at the bottom of the list :
Permian.
Carboniferous.
Old Red Sandstone or Devonian.
Silurian.
Ordovician.
Cambrian.
The study of the rocks is of interest not merely as enabling us to follow the development of organic history, but also because the character of the rocks now at the surface, their structure and position, have determined the present-day physical features of the land. The position and form of the hills and mountains of Scotland are not directly due to any uplifting of certain portions of the earth's crust, but are the result of the continuous attacks of rain, rivers, frost, ice, and wind. All these agents tend, in varying degrees of power, to wear down the land surface ; and, since some rocks are more easily removed, either by disintegration or dissolution, than others, the more resistant rocks remain outstanding as high ground. Now the stratified rocks, those which have been laid down under water as a sediment in layers, are, generally speaking, more easily disintegrated than the massive igneous rocks, those which have been erupted from the heated interior of the earth. Hence, in this part of the country, the igneous rocks are left as hills overlooking the plains of the less-resistant sedimentary deposits.
We are now in a position to attempt to trace in broad outline the physical history of Clackmannan. The period when, long ages ago, the Old Red Sandstone of the midland valley of Scotland was being deposited in some ancient inland sea or lake, was a time of volcanic activity. Through the floor of that sheet of water great masses of lava and volcanic conglomerate were ejected to spread over the sandstone and to be in turn themselves buried beneath later deposits. After numerous and varied changes the overlying deposits were removed by denudation, until to-day the volcanic masses are exposed and form long lines of uplands, such as the Sidlaws, the Pentlands, and the Ochils. The south-west extremity of the Ochils occupies the northern half of Clackmannanshire ; and the whole character of this northern half is in marked contrast to the low-lying Carboniferous plain between the hill foot and the Forth - differing most strikingly in elevation, in scenery, in economic value, and in the density of habitation. The difference is the more noticeable since the igneous rocks do not pass gradually under the Carboniferous ; instead they come to an abrupt end along a line immediately to the north of the Menstrie-to-Dollar road. This important feature requires further explanation. The comparatively stiff outer crust of the Earth is not free to shrink in the same way as the rocks, presumably in a molten state, of the viscid interior. It can accommodate itself to a smaller circumference only by being squeezed into ridges and troughs, or by fracture and dislocation ; and the attempt so to accommodate itself results both in slow secular upheaval and in earthquake and fracture. The Ochils themselves have been squeezed up into a broad arch, while examples of fracture and dislocation may be found in almost any district. Such fractures, called by geologists faults, may occur without displacement of the rocks on either side; but, in general, the rocks slide along the plane of division. The length of the slide, or the "throw" as it is called, may vary from a few inches to many thousands of feet. Again, the horizontal extent of the fault may run for a few feet only or stretch for hundreds of miles. One great fault begins near Stirling and may be traced in a line across Clackmannan a little to the north of the Menstrie-to-Dollar road. Beyond Dollar it appears to split into two branches. It is this fault that causes the igneous rocks of the Ochils to come to an abrupt end in a great wall ; and the rocks on the southern side are estimated to have been displaced to a depth of at least 10,000 feet. One might readily suppose that this enormous displacement was the direct cause of the present difference in elevation ; in other words, that the step-like structure resulting from the throw has persisted till to-day, but this has not been the case. Both the igneous rocks of the present hills and the carboniferous rocks of the modern plain were buried under hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet of later sedimentary deposits. These deposits have been gradually removed by the action of a stupendous denudation continued through long ages, and it is only because the Ochils are composed of the harder, more resistant igneous rocks that they stand to-day as a great northern wall overlooking and sheltering the worn-down plain of the more easily removable Carboniferous rocks. Nevertheless, we must remember that, but for the fault, the igneous rocks, and therefore the Ochils, would be continued further southwards than they are, and neither the low plain of Clackmannan nor its coalfield would be occupying their present position. This consideration gives weight to the contention that the great fracture was the most important incident in the physical history of the shire.
Another important event must also be noted. In the latter part of the Cainozoic era, at a time which seems to have immediately preceded the advent of man, the climate of these latitudes was intensely cold. Britain, as far south as the Thames, was at one period covered by a thick sheet of ice just as Greenland is now. Before the advance of this ice-sheet from the north, the physical features of the country were, in general outline, much as they are to-day ; but the land then stood somewhat higher and had been sculptured by a process of long continued denudation. The hills had been carved into sharp ridges, bold peaks and rugged upper slopes, while the valleys and plains were covered with a thick blanket of residual waste. As the arctic conditions came on, the ice-sheet, gathering among the high hills of the north-west, pushed slowly southwards, sending long tongues of ice down the valleys, lapping round the hills, until at length it so increased in height as to override the whole countryside. As the heavy mass slowly ground its way along, it carried before it the loose waste material of the valleys and plains, and, plucking away the rugged projections of the crests and sides of the hills, scoured and ground the bare rock to a smooth and polished surface. This period is called the Glacial Epoch or Ice Age. Eventually, with a return of more genial conditions, the southern portions of the great glaciers melted and the ice-sheet seemed to retreat northwards, though both the advance and retreat were intermittent rather than continuous. When the ice-sheet melted away, it left behind the masses of ground-up material which it had been transporting. This waste now covers the Carboniferous rocks of Clackmannan, and can be traced up the valleys of the Ochils, sometimes more than 1000 feet above sea-level. It varies in texture, composition and colour according to its origin. Most often it is a stiff clay full of boulders - hence its name of Boulder Clay - and fragmentary material, and sometimes containing lime, a soluble mineral found in soils produced mainly by weathering. The clay is dark blue if derived from carbonaceous rocks ; but, if derived from the Old Red Sandstone, it is reddish, and loose and sandy. These sheets of clay are thickest on the lee side of the hills, that is, the side opposite to that from which the ice-sheet advanced. In places the Clay has been covered by deposits of sand and gravel, laid down, as their water-worn material evidences, by streams whose source may have been the retreating glacier.
Since the time of the Glacial Epoch, the land surface has been attacked by the ordinary agents of denudation ; frost has been the means of loosening the exposed rocks ; ground water, percolating through the porous strata, has washed away soluble minerals ; rivers, cutting trenches through the boulder clay, have worked over and sorted the material of their beds; but the time which has elapsed has not been long enough to obliterate the work of the overriding ice. Wherever superficial deposits have till now covered them, rock surfaces scratched by angular fragments embedded in the base of the long-vanished moving ice may be found here and there among the higher ground of the Ochils. The direction in which such markings, or striae, run, shows that the ice moved over the hills in a general east-south-east course, trending more to the east as the lower ground was reached. Great boulders, called erratic blocks because they are quite different in character from the rocks on which they now rest, lie scattered over the area to which they were borne on the surface of the ice-sheet. One feature, however, of the landscape left by the Ice Age has almost vanished. The surface characteristic of a glaciated country is an irregular one ; on the higher ground, ice-scooped basins are found ; on the lower, depressions of various sizes and shapes amongst the lines of sand and gravel drift. These hollows became filled with water, but, of the numerous small lakes so formed, less than a dozen remain in the peninsula to-day, though several others appear in our older maps. Streams flowing into them have helped to fill them up ; the marginal marshy vegetation has crept in, and, dying, formed a peaty bottom, over which the advance has been continued. In time the sheet of water becomes a marsh, the marsh a peat-bog. With the need for more arable land, the peat-bog is drained ; and, perhaps after the of the peat, the land is ploughed ; then nothing remains to mark the site of the lake but the black soil upturned by the plough, or, where the land is not under cultivation, the character of the vegetation. Occasionally too, such names as Myreside or Bogside help us to fix the site of the vanished water. The only lake in Clackmannan to-day is Gartmorn Dam, but this, as the name suggests, is of artificial origin. It was formed in 1700 by damming back the upper waters of a tributary of the Black Devon ; and, repaired and improved in later years, notably in 1827 and 1867, it now supplies water to the burgh of Alloa.
4. Surface Features.
From the account of the geology of the shire, we are prepared to find that the surface features north of the great fault differ absolutely from those to the south. To the north the land has an average elevation of more than 1500 feet, and reaches its culminating point in Bencleuch, the "stony mountain," a peak, 2363 feet above sea-level, occupying the centre of the Clackmannanshire Ochils. From Bencleuch the crest line runs west by north to Blairdenon Hill (2072 feet), east to Whitewisp Hill (2110 feet), and east by south to King's Seat Hill (2111 feet). On either side of this divide, small streams, swollen in to torrents after heavy rainfall, tumble rapidly down to join the larger rivers of the lower valleys. Curiously enough, they all join the same river, because the Devon, which flows eastward on the north side of this divide and roughly parallel to it, makes a great bend beyond the eastern confines of the county and thus returns to pass westwards close along the hill foot across the breadth of Clackmannanshire, receiving in its passage the waters of the streams which drain the southern face of the Ochils. These streams have cut deep and picturesque glens amongst the hills ; and where the glens debouch upon the Carboniferous plain the towns on the Kinross road have arisen. Thus the Burn of Sorrow, flowing from Maddy Moss in the basin between Whitewisp and King's Seat Hills, after being joined by the Burn of Care at Castle Campbell, enters the Devon at Dollar ; the Dai Glen Burn, reinforced by the Gannel or Gloomingside Burn, enters at Tillicoultry ; the Alva Burn at Alva ; the Menstrie Burn at Menstrie. Blairdenon Hill, right on the county boundary, is an important hydrographic centre, streams radiating from it in all directions. The hills themselves are covered with a thin soil formed of the detritus of the underlying igneous rock, which, indeed, is not always completely covered but in places protrudes in rounded knolls or bluff crags.
South of the great fault is all low flat agricultural country. This area, triangular in shape with the apex pointing west, may be divided into three parts. In the north, occupying a belt of ground immediately below the Ochil edge, is the Devon valley stretching completely across the county. In the south, running parallel to the Devon valley, is that of the Black Devon. Between these valleys, a wedge of land of slightly higher elevation is pushed westwards from the Cleish Hills in Fife and, some 400 feet high when it crosses the county boundary, sinks gradually down to the general level of the plain. Generally speaking, sandy and gravelly drift covers the rocks of the Carboniferous plain, giving rise to a somewhat light, loamy soil.
5. Rivers.
A navigable part of the Forth forms the south-western boundary of the county. At the western border of Clackmannan, it has a breadth of about one furlong, which gradually increases as it pursues its winding course eastwards. At Cambus the volume of the river receives an addition from the Devon. Then the Forth takes a large bend to the south, flowing round Tullibody Inch and round Alloa Inch to the port of Alloa. The sinuous course of the river is due to the flatness of the plain over which it wanders. Where the gradient of a river bed is but slight, any small obstruction deflects its course. The river flows round the obstruction and the current on the outside of the loop is naturally swifter than that of the sluggish water edging, so to speak, round the inside. The faster the current, the greater is its carrying capacity and the more powerful its erosive force. The bank on the outside of the loop gets worn away while, on the inner side, the checked current will deposit some of the heavier material it was transporting. Thus the loop becomes more and more pronounced, until perhaps its narrowed neck is broken down in some time of flood and the river once more straightens its course, the detached portion of land forming an island in the stream. Later, the river ceases to use the old loop, which changes from river bed to marsh, and eventually to a mere horseshoe-shaped depression. The island now becomes united to the opposite bank as if it had migrated from one side to the other. From Stirling to Alloa in a straight line is but slightly over 5.5 miles, yet the distance by the winding river is seven miles longer. Such winding loops are usually called "meanders," but here they are known as the Links of the Forth. The great agricultural value of the alluvial land originated the popular jingle :
"A crook of the Forth
Is worth an earldom of the North."
Alloa itself is situated on the outside of a bend and thus has the advantage of the swifter and, therefore, deeper water, though, even so, the harbour suffers from a continual deposition of sediment. Below Alloa, the Forth, ceasing to wind, flows in a fairly straight south-east course past the two small harbours of Clackmannan Pow, at the
mouth of the Black Devon, and Kennetpans, until, just after passing the eastern boundary of the county, where the river's breadth is but seven furlongs, it opens out into
the estuary.
The next largest river is the Devon, rising in Blairdenon Hill at an altitude of some 1800 feet. Then it flows, with a bend towards the north, eastwards through Perthshire territory for fourteen miles to the Crook of Devon. There making an abrupt turn, it pursues a west-south-west course through a deep ravine to enter Clackmannanshire again at Dollar. This stretch is most famous for its picturesque and wild scenery. Foaming and rushing along at the bottom of a deep and, in places, overhanging gorge, the river leaps in hidden waterfalls into such gloomy chasms as the Devil's Mill, whence the tormented and tossing water passes onward beneath the Rumbling Bridge to career wildly in alternate leaps and swirling rushes down the Caldron Linn. With the river's re-entry into Clackmannanshire, the character of the valley changes, the steep descent of the narrow gorge is succeeded by the gentle gradient of the fertile plain, and the river winds placidly westward through a broad belt of pleasant agricultural land under the shelter of the bold outline of the Ochils. It is this green valley "where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows," that was familiar to Burns, who, on his visit to Harviestoun in 1787,
wrote the short lyric commencing :
"How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon,
With green spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair!"
On reaching the western border of the county, the river turns sharply southwards to join the Forth at Cambus, after a course of nearly 34 miles, though in a direct line Cambus is but 5.25 miles from the river's source.
Thus the Devon has two distinct sections : an upper course flowing generally eastwards to the Crook of Devon, and a lower flowing westwards from the Crook to Cambus. This lower section, when seen on the map, appears strikingly peculiar, since the river flows in an opposite direction to that followed by the Forth, entering that river at quite an unusual angle. This curious feature is intelligible when we consider the effect of the great Ochil fault on the development of the river system. We may conceive the original Devon as a small tributary coming down from the southern face of the Ochils and receiving on its way to the Forth additional streams from the eastern slopes of the Abbey Craig. This little, but rapid, stream would gradually cut its bed deeper and deeper and would develop side tributaries from the east. Similar streams from the Ochils would run down towards the Forth, tending always to follow the easiest route. Now, the line of fracture of the fault is a line of weakness, along which the streams could most easily excavate a bed. The tributary, then, which followed the line of the fault would rapidly erode its bed ; the land at its source, thus to have a steeper slope, would weather down at a comparatively rapid rate, and the valley would, so to speak, eat its way up stream. Progressing in this manner, it might tap the head waters of other streams draining the Ochil face, and the river, increasing thus in volume and erosive power, would continue the process by which the divide or water-parting gets pushed further and further back until it not only has captured the streams draining the southern face of the Ochils but has also tapped the head-waters of a river running in the transverse valley behind the Blairdenon-to-Whitewisp ridge. This latter river, now represented by the upper course of the Devon, then flowed straight on past the Crook of Devon along a course corresponding to the Gairney Water into the plain of Kinross, whence it issued to the sea either by the Leven or the Eden. Once the upper waters of the Devon were captured at the Crook and turned away south-west, the former continuation of the upper stream, robbed of its old supply, dwindled into the insignificant brook now called the Gairney Water.
Another feature of interest in the lower Devon valley is that the present alluvium hides a deep buried channel. Near Tillicoultry a bore struck solid rock at a depth of 342 feet ; another near Alva at 336 feet ; a third near Menstrie at 372 feet. These borings show that the old river channel is now about 300 feet below sea-level ; and, therefore, the land must have formerly stood higher. With the gradual sinking of the land the rate of the swift and powerful river would become lessened ; and so the gorge would be gradually filled up by the sediment deposited by the stream.
As a fishing stream, the Devon has a good reputation for trout, which average rather less than half a pound each ; but the sport is not so good now as formerly, when trout and parr were abundant, with pike and eels in the deep pools and, in the spawning season, salmon from the Forth.
The third river of Clackmannanshire, the Black Devon, rises in the Cleish hills and flows in a course generally parallel to the Devon, along the north border of The Forest, by the town of Clackmannan to enter the Forth at Clackmannan Pow. With an average gradient of 1 in 134, it is not a rapid stream and seems to take its name from the contrast between its dull waters and those of the "crystal" Devon.
6. Natural History.
The character of the vegetation of any district depends for the most part on climate, soil, and human activity. Clackmannanshire, therefore, has two quite different zones
of vegetation : the cultivated land of the warmer and drier Carboniferous plain ; and the hill pasture of the colder and wetter igneous Ochils. Practically the whole of the plain is cultivated, being under crops, grass, or plantations. Little wheat or barley is grown, the chief cereal being oats. A feature of interest is the existence of several meadows sown with Timothy grass (Phleum Pratense), for which the coal mines provide a good local market. The plantations, though few of them are more than a century old, cover in the aggregate a considerable area and, stretching on either hand above the flat meadow-lands of the Devon or scattered over the higher central ground of the plain, form a notable feature of the landscape. In Tullibody woods the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is dominant on the higher ground, and associated with it is spruce (Picea excelsa). The lower ground is occupied by oak, ash, beech, horse-chestnut, plane, and poplar. The higher wood on Wood Hill between Alva and Tillicoultry is mentioned by the late Robert Smith as being planted with mixed trees; beech, oak and Scots pine predominating and flourishing well, while less abundant are ash, elm, larch, spruce, birch, and rowan. The "Forest" at Gartlove is mainly coniferous (Scots pine and spruce).
The Clackmannanshire Ochils are clothed with grass to the summits. Two zones of vegetation may be distinguished :
A. Above the cultivated area is a zone of mixed grasses, with well marked presence of bracken (up to 1200 feet on Middle Hill, to 1000 feet on King's Seat) and whin (up to about 500 feet). Juniper also occurs occasionally in the bracken zone. This mixed herbage provides excellent pasturage for sheep.
B. Above 1000 feet or so, zone A passes into the summit Nardus (white moor grass) zone, which is a strong feature of the Ochils. This Nardus zone carries a much less varied herbage, as Nardus stricta, Molinia (blow grass) and Agrostis (moor-bent) occupy practically all the ground. It is a very inferior pasturage except for the June-July grazing, when sheep may be seen on the very summits, e.g. at King's Seat, 2111 feet high. The upper Nardus zone was possibly once heather land ; blaeberry and heather, though almost completely suppressed by the long-continued use of the hills for pasturage, occur here and there in a stunted condition. Arctic-alpine plants are very rare on the Ochils: the hills are too rounded, and coated with glacial deposits ; they have few easily weathered crags to form shelves and crannies which suit some species ; nor have they alpine peat suitable to others. The following have been recorded, though in some cases the record is doubtful :
Alchemilla alpina, Carex rigida, Epilobium alpinum, Gnaphalium supinum, Meum athamanticum, Poa alpina, Polygonum viviparum, Rubus chamaemorus, Salix lapponum, Saxifraga stellaris, S. hypnoides, S. hirculus, Silene acaulis. Saxifraga hirculus is an extremely rare plant in any country ; it was reported as being discovered in Maddy Moss, north of King's Seat.
The lower parts of the Ochil glens are occupied by deciduous woods, while bracken flourishes on the slopes. The abrupt steep gorges of these glens offer many habitats for different species ; the glens, being sheltered and having a constant water supply, are consequently rich in plant life. For the Silver Glen at Alva, an unpublished list of Robert Smith's records 24 flowering plants and ferns on the rock ledges, and 29 along the stream margins. These lists were compiled in September and do not include any very rare plants.
Clackmannanshire is not peculiar in its fauna. The usual common wild animals are found, such as the rabbit, hedgehog, mole, squirrel and brown rat. The roe-deer, formerly to be found in Tullibody woods, is not now met with in the county. The otter was thought to have become extinct, but still makes a rare appearance in the Devon river ; one was captured as recently as May, 1913. Of birds, several, such as the bittern, the heron, and the snipe, have vanished with the draining of the bogs and marshes. The glede has also disappeared and the goldfinch is very rarely seen.
7. Climate.
The chief factors which determine climate are latitude, proximity to the ocean, the direction of the prevalent winds, and the elevation and exposure of the land. Considering Scotland as a whole, we find that the fairly high latitude (55 - 59 degrees North.) gives a moderately cool climate with a mean annual temperature of 46.4 degrees F. ; that the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean and the fact that the prevalent winds are from the south-west are responsible for the moist equable climate, the mean annual range of temperature being less than 20 degrees F. The west side, facing the Atlantic, has the smaller range of temperature and the heavier rainfall. The rain comes at all seasons of the year but especially during the winter months, the mean annual amount for Scotland being 40.02 inches. Local variations in climate are chiefly due to differences in elevation and exposure.
Clackmannanshire, being so small, does not present any marked differences in its climate from that of the east of Scotland generally ; moreover, since there are not any stations in the county sending in returns to the Meteorological Office, it is difficult to obtain reliable statistics of the actual climate experienced. The tables published from the Reports of that office by the Board of Agriculture divide Scotland into four divisions. Now the mean January temperature for the north-east division the ten counties between the Moray Firth and the Forth - is 36.9 degrees F., For the south-east 37.1. For Clackmannanshire, therefore, the most southerly county of the north-east division, 37 may be taken as the correct figure. The July temperature is similarly found to lie between 56.9 and 57.9 degrees, and may be assumed to be 57.4.
This gives an annual range of temperature for the county of 20.4 degrees, being, as one would expect from an eastern county, somewhat above the mean range for the whole of Scotland.
The total rainfall for each of the four divisions and for the whole of Scotland and the distribution of this rainfall throughout the year are shown in the graph below,
which brings out clearly the greater rainfall of the west, especially the north-west, and the comparative dryness of the early summer months in Scotland. The amount of bright sunshine received has a close connection with the amount of rainfall, tending to vary especially so when, as is the case here, the summer months are the drier months. We find therefore that May and June are the brightest months of the year, receiving each nearly 200 hours of bright sunshine, except in the north-west where a greater degree of cloudiness obtains. If, as before, we attempt to get figures for Clackmannanshire as a mean between those for north-east and south-east Scotland, the total number of hours of bright sunshine appears to be 1490 per annum, the monthly minimum being 35.5 hours in December and the maximum 185 hours in May. The total mean annual rainfall for the county would be 32.7 inches.
Within the limits of Clackmannanshire there are, of course, considerable local variations of climate; the broad distinction being between the higher, more exposed, colder and wetter Ochils and the lower, sheltered, warmer and drier plain. The difference in elevation between the portions north and south of the Ochil fault is sufficient in itself to account for a difference of some 5 in temperature; and, since the southern part is sheltered from the north winds, the actual difference would be greater. The southern slopes of the Ochils benefit equally with the plain in being sheltered from the north and, moreover, present a surface more nearly normal to the rays of the sun. The mean annual rainfall at Alloa is 32.46 inches; but nearer the hills the rainfall is heavier, being 39.97 at Alva House and 41.66 at Dollar. On the hills themselves the amount is considerably greater than this, and, at times of heavy rainfall, the rivers rise rapidly and come down in a huge spate, while the boggy morass called Maddy Moss has been known to burst its barriers and send down a jostling torrent of mud by the Burn of Sorrow to the Devon below. These Lammas floods have often caused the Devon below Dollar to overflow its banks, destroying any crops in the low fields adjacent. Such a flood is noted in the Old Statistical Account : "A very remarkable and uncommon flood happened in September 1785, which carried away a prodigious quantity of corn, broke down a stone bridge at the Rack Mill, in Dollar, and occasioned other very extraordinary damage. The river rose in four or five hours more than 13 feet above its usual height at Tillicoultry Bridge." A later and more disastrous flood occurred in August 1877. That month had been one of particularly heavy rainfall, so heavy, indeed, that it caused the total rainfall for that year to be greater than previously recorded in many parts of Scotland, including Dollar, where the total fall was 61.28 inches as against the average figure of 41.66.
Throughout the night of the 27th August, a steady fall of rain had swollen the Ochil burns and, when morning came, a torrential downpour was descending from the gloomy and sombre sky. The dark hillside was streaked with the white of foaming, tumbling cataracts, which, pouring downwards into the turgid flood of the Devon, caused widespread inundation and devastation. The town of Tillicoultry suffered severely - to the extent, it is said, of some £8000.
8. Agriculture.
The 1911 Census returned the number of persons engaged in agriculture in Clackmannanshire as 490, one out of every 19 occupied males. Considerably less than half the land is now under cultivation, while one-third is mountain and heath land used for grazing. Oats and rotation grasses occupy more than two-thirds of the arable land, the remaining third being utilised for root crops, beans, wheat or barley. The soil south of the Ochil fault varies from a stiff clay to a sandy loam, the heavier soils being near the Forth, and the lighter, drier soils on the higher ground. In many places, however, the soil is peaty, and this accounts for the extensive cultivation of oats, since this crop, like potatoes, is more tolerant of extreme of acid humus in the soil.
Before the close of the eighteenth century, the agriculture of the county was carried on in a wretched and wasteful manner. The holdings were so small as barely to furnish a subsistence to the family of the tenant, who, unable to carry out drainage operations on a suitable scale, found much of his cold, wet, and stiff clay soil not worth the trouble of working. Crude methods of cultivation, the absence of fences, the abundance of whins and weeds, miserable farm buildings and bad roads were among the causes which rendered the farmer's existence poverty-stricken and precarious. The improvement when it came, proceeded apace. The size of the farms was increased as leases expired, in Clackmannan parish the number of holdings was reduced by 40 in 20 years; drainage and fencing were undertaken; in 1774, 300 acres of common grazing land belonging to the feuars of Tillicoultry were taken by agreement for enclosure; thirlages and services were abolished; a better rotation of crops was introduced. Led by such men as Tait of Harviestoun, the county rapidly acquired a reputation for successful farming; a Farmers' Society was established in 1784; three years later the first effective thrashing machine in Scotland was erected at Kilbagie by George Meikle, the son of its celebrated inventor, both of whom resided at Alloa. In 1793 a plough and ploughman were sent from the county to give an exhibition at the Royal Farm at Windsor ; and, in the same year, one of the enclosures of the Harviestoun estate was let at four guineas an acre for grazing, whereas a few years before the best carse lands of Clackmannan were rented at 43s. per annum.
This high price, however, did not continue.
The improvements so successfully and rapidly introduced have steadily continued ; but, since the middle of the nineteenth century, there has been throughout the country a contraction of the cultivated area year by year and a tendency for arable land to revert to pasture. This has been brought about mainly by the lowering of the price of corn consequent upon the enormous increase in imported grain. In seeking to discover to what extent the area under cultivation in Clackmannanshire has contracted, it is useless to take the actual acreage at different times, because the county boundaries have altered, but a comparison of the proportion of cultivated land to the total area would be a sufficiently reliable index and such is given below.
Area of Cultivated Land expressed as a Percentage of Total Area
1854 - 59
1881 - 49
1911 - 44
Area under various Crops or Grass expressed as a Percentage of Total Area under Cultivation
| 1854 | 1881 | 1911 | |
| Wheat | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| Barley | 7 | 7 | 1 |
| Oats | 16 | 21 | 19 |
| Beans | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| Turnips | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| Rotation Grasses | 21 | 22 | 24 |
| Permanent Pasture | 29 | 28 | 40 |
The Ochils provide excellent pasture for sheep, of which there were in 1911 15,220. There are some fine Leicesters on the best farms, but on the Ochils are kept black-faced ewes, crosses being bred from these with Leicester rams. The cattle number 3479, mainly cross-bred from Ayrshire cows and short-horned bulls, though many of the dairymen have bought Irish cows.
Only 3715 acres are now under woods and plantations, much less than formerly. Of the natural wood of the ancient forest, nothing remains but a very small portion within the grounds of Alloa House.
The largest patches of woodland now existing are the "Forest" of Clackmannan, at one time a royal domain, and Tullibody Woods.
9. Industries and Manufactures.
The chief industry of Clackmannanshire is the woollen and worsted manufacture, which now provides work for more than half the occupied females and for one-third of the occupied males. This manufacture, originating, doubtless, because of the large number of sheep on the Ochils, dates at least as far back as 1550, and was, for a long time, purely a domestic industry. The wool was hand-carded and spun by the wife, while the yarn was woven into cloth by the husband, the wife usually undertaking the purchase of the wool from the hill farmers and the sale of the cloth to the merchants. It was an advantage also to be near a stream, both for the purpose of cleaning the fleece and because the fulling of the cloth was done by the feet in the burn. Thus the industry gathered round the hill streams, Tillicoultry, Alva and Menstrie became important centres, Tillicoultry serges being famous throughout Scotland. These places were well situated to benefit by the later industrial developments, the hill streams provided water power, while supplies of coal were at hand. At first only blankets, serges and a coarse kind of plaiding were made ; but, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, new enterprises were started ; a successful tartan shawl manufacture began at Alva and Tillicoultry, and in the New Statistical Account the great increase of population in the latter place - from 1472 in 1831 to 3213 in 1841 is ascribed to the rapid increase in the shawl trade.
In 1816 John Paton commenced the spinning of worsted yarns at Alloa, which has proved in recent years the most prosperous manufacture of all. Alloa is now the great centre ; tweeds, it is true, are no longer manufactured there ; but all kinds of yarn are spun, the material used being chiefly colonial, Cheviot, or Saxony wools, as the wool from the black-faced sheep of the Ochils is too coarse. The older centres, Tillicoultry with nearly a dozen factories, and Alva, are still associated with the manufacture; and Messrs Paton have also a large yarn mill at Clackmannan.
Another industry is brewing and distilling, in which 831 persons are employed. Brewing is an old-established industry ; the Sheriff's Account of 1359, states that the brewing women of Clackmannan were wont to pay an annual licence of fourpence. Alloa is now the centre of this industry, and its ales have been famous since the first brewery was established in 1784. To-day there are eight breweries with an aggregate annual output of over 100,000 barrels.
Spirits were formerly manufactured at Kilbagie and Kennetpans. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Kilbagie was the largest distillery in Scotland, with an annual output of 3000 tuns of whisky. It was connected by canal and trainway with Kennetpans ; and the two distilleries are said to have paid in excise duties an amount greater than the whole land tax of Scotland at that time. Indeed, in 1861, the excise duties on spirits and malt from Clackmannanshire contributed a sixty-eighth part of the revenue of the United Kingdom. Changes in the law brought about the abandonment of these old distilleries ; the most important now existing are Carsebridge, established in 1799, one of the largest in the country, with a capacity for a weekly output of 60,000 gallons, - Glenochil near Menstrie, and Cambus.
The manufacture of iron provides work for 435 men. There is a foundry at Alloa, but the chief establishment was the Devon Iron Works near the Devon in the north of Alloa parish. These works, founded in 1792, were at first largely dependent upon local sources of supply, employing at one time 150 miners, but the seam of iron became exhausted. After experiencing fluctuating fortunes and frequent chancres of ownership, the manufacture was abandoned some 40 years ago.
In addition to the industries common to all counties, such as house building and furnishing, the preparation and sale of provisions, Clackmannanshire has bottle and glass yards, saw mills and rope walks works, shipbuilding paper mills at Kilbagie ; brick and tile yards at Alloa ; and pottery works at Alloa and Clackmannan.
10. Mines and Minerals.
The Clackmannan coalfield, which lies, of course, entirely to the south of the Ochil fault, is one of considerable value. It begins at the boundary with Fife, where the Millstone Grit dips gradually under the Upper Coal Measures. The Sauchie coalfield was the earliest to be worked, but its development was retarded by the lack of good roads to bring the coal to market. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the Devon Iron Works Company, then the tacksmen or lessees, found it hardly profitable to continue working the seams, since the only road to the port of Alloa was a semi-private one leading through the estates of the Mar family, by whom it was kept in repair and to whom had to be paid the Gate Mail, a toll of fourpence on every chalder of coal. The Clackmannan coal is now worked by the Alloa Coal Company, in whose deepest colliery 17 seams are found, aggregating 50 feet in thickness, five of these being under two feet. During the quinquennial period 1873 - 1877, the average annual output was 226,526 tons, since when it has almost double, the average annual output 1900 - 1904 being 421,448 tons. The output for 1911 was 414,746 tons.
The coal shipments from Alloa, where nearly half this output is shipped, are as follows:
1870 - 95,925 tons
1880 - 132,043 tons
1890 - 300,921 tons
1900 - 274,877 tons
1911 - 214,826 tons
The great increase in the shipments following 1885 was due to new docks and improved facilities for coaling ; but the decline since 1890 seems to be the result of the development of the Fifeshire coalfields and the competition of the better situated ports below the Forth Bridge. In 1911, 1477 persons in Clackmannanshire were engaged in the coal industry ; and the quantity of available coal from this field was estimated by the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies in 1905 at 443,800,366 tons.
No other minerals are at present worked in the county, though iron, silver, and copper were formerly mined, while lead, cobalt, arsenic, sulphur, and antimony occur in small quantities among the igneous rocks of the Ochils. The iron was mainly wrought in the vicinity of Tillicoultry ; and, in 1793, the Devon Iron Works employed sixty-four miners and ten women bearers in working the ironstone. A cave in the Mill Glen still marks an adit of an abandoned mine. In the Mill Glen, too, copper was wrought for a few years in the middle of the eighteenth century ; a London company employing fifty miners till the veins, of which the thickest was about 18 inches, became exhausted. The little glen between the Middle and Wood hills behind Alva is known as the Silver Glen ; and here Sir John Erskine, in 1712, discovered his famous silver mine, which, for a time, was worked with considerable success, bringing to the owner nearly £50,000 worth of silver. The attention of the Government was called to this mine and Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, assayed the silver. Sir John, being involved in the Jacobite rebellion, had been outlawed in 1715, but his sentence seems to have been remitted in consideration of the knowledge of the workings which he was able to impart to the Government, who sent down a German expert to investigate the mine. Though his report stated that the ore was exceedingly rich, the returns from the working rapidly dwindled to the vanishing point ; and Sir John seems to have lost most of his gains by continuing the enterprise after the veins had become exhausted. A resumption of the mining 40 years later proved equally unprofitable, though Alva church gained a pair of communion cups made from the native silver.
From pits or quarries within the county were obtained in 1911, 4142 tons of gravel and sand valued at £305, 7584 tons of igneous rock worth £845, and 1520 tons of sandstone worth £323.
11. History.
The history of Clackmannanshire has been a quiet one; few great events have taken place within the county; armies have seldom encamped on its soil ; it has not been the centre of great movements affecting the social or religious life of the country. Nor is the uneventful nature of the history of Clackmannan difficult to understand. The main current of Scottish history swept past the western boundary of Fife; whatever military campaigns were undertaken, it was seldom necessary to attempt the seizure of the peninsula. One may search the session records of the Clackmannanshire parishes and discover scarcely any reflection of the general history of the country, even during its most eventful periods. Moreover, though Clackmannanshire is the southern door to Fife, the key to that door is Stirling. That town is famous as a place of great strategic importance ; its neighbourhood is thickly studded with the sites of battlefields. To the holder of Stirling, the possession of Fife was not a matter of urgent importance. The military history of Fife, since the incursions of the Northmen, is meagre in the extreme ; so also is that of Clackmannan, but the influential centres in the former county, from which light and learning spread over Scotland, have no counterpart in the latter. In fact, the few incidents, worthy of mention in this brief history, are connected with men who passed through on their way to or from more eventful scenes.
It seems probable that, during the Roman occupation, some of the expeditions beyond the Antonine wall may have passed through Clackmannan. Roman coins have been discovered ; a double-edged straight iron sword, 31 inches long, was dug up near Harviestoun in 1796 ; cinerary urns have been found at Alva. Tillicoultry and elsewhere.
In 1828, while an old road at Alloa was under repair, a supposed Roman burial-ground was discovered. Twenty cinerary urns of coarse pottery, rudely ornamented, were found, along with two stone coffins and a pair of gold penannular armlets.
In the early centuries of our era the men of this district belonged to the great Celtic tribe known to the Romans as Danmonii. Later, the county was part of the debatable land in the middle of Scotland, the district of Manann, inhabited by a mixed population of Britons, Angles and Picts, the scene of conflicts among the different peoples whose countries met here.
About the close of the seventh century, St Serf came to the Fife peninsula to convert the Picts. Many curious traditions linger round his name : of his long argument with the Devil at Dysart; how he slew a dragon at Dunning ; how he raised from the dead two young men at Tillicoultry ; of the pathetic death at that place of his pet goat, or lamb ; how he rescued from the waters of the Forth an infant, who later became St Mungo. This much at least is true, that St Serf lived and that, from Culross as centre, he went out preaching and teaching, visiting, among other places, Tullibody, Tillicoultry and Alva. A well at Alva, a bridge over the Devon, and an island in Loch Leven, commemorate his name.
One of the greatest events of the ninth century was the union of the Picts and the Scots (844) under Kenneth MacAlpin. No precise and satisfactory account of the union is preserved. It is conjectured that Kenneth had a plausible claim to the Pictish crown, and taking advantage of an invasion of Pictland by the Northmen - perhaps in concert with them - he forced the Picts to submit. Tradition locates their defeat near Tullibody, where a stone on Baingle Brae was reputed to mark the battlefield. Kenneth's son Constantin had many troubles with the Northmen. In 877 a swarm of them from Ireland penetrated the Firth of Clyde, crossed to the east coast, and defeated him at Dollar. He fled, but was brought to bay in the Fife parish of Forgan, where he fell with many of his men.
In 1559 French troops were on the coast of Fife in the service of the Queen Regent. Their commander, hearing that the English fleet sent to aid the Lords of the Congregation had arrived in the Forth, decided to retreat towards Stirling. To impede his march, Kirkaldy of Grange broke down the bridge of Tullibody over the Devon, then swollen by winter floods. The French, however, unroofed the church of Tullibody and repaired the broken bridge.
Much greater disasters to the county attended the passage of the royalist force of Montrose in 1645. He burnt Muckart and Dollar and also Castle Campbell, then one of the seats of Montrose's bitter enemy, the Marquis of Argyll. Alloa having been plundered by Montrose's lawless Irish auxiliaries, the main body spent the night in Tullibody Wood, while their leader and his chief officers were lavishly entertained at Alloa House by the Earl of Mar. Argyll, who was in pursuit, by way of reprisal burnt Menstrie House, the seat of the Earl of Stirling, and Airthrey Castle belonging to Sir John Graham of Braco, Montrose's uncle. He also threatened to return and burn Alloa House to teach the Earl of Mar to be more careful in his choice of guests. Though Montrose's victory at Kilsyth removed any immediate danger to Mar, yet, after Montrose's complete defeat at Philiphaugh by David Leslie, it was only the victor's direct intervention that saved the Earl's life.
12. Architecture.
The oldest castles now standing in Clackmannanshire go back to the Wars of Independence.
Built at a time when the kingdom was in a disturbed state and when the great barons had neither the means nor the inclination to erect costly ornamental edifices, the early castles were especially designed for strength in defence. Their general plan of construction is similar, and shows the influence of the Norman ideas introduced into Scotland either by Anglo-Norman immigrants or by those who, during their raiding expeditions into the north of England, had seen Norman keeps. Examples of such imitations are Castle Campbell, Alloa Tower, and Clackmanannan Tower. Generally speaking, these and similar buildings consisted of a square or oblong tower with walls of great thickness built entirely of stone. The walls of Alloa Tower are ten feet thick and a convincing proof of their ability to withstand attack by fire was given in 1800 when, a fire having accidentally broken out, only the ancient tower survived the conflagration, while the extensive buildings which had been added were burnt to the ground. These square towers were defended from the roof, which had a parapet supported on corbels. In some cases, as at Castle Campbell, small overhanging turrets - bartizans - projected from the angles of the battlements. In some cases the parapet had openings through which molten lead or other material might be cast on the heads of assailants. Such openings, styled machicolations, are, however, unusual in Clackmannanshire. The entrance to the tower was usually made to the first floor level by a ladder or some other easily-removable means. The ground floor was used as a store-room and, like the other floors, was vaulted. The first floor was the common hall and the second contained the private rooms, while, if there were four storeys, the top floor contained attics for the garrison, entering from the battlements. These floors were connected with each other by means of a straight flight of stairs in the thickness of the walls or by a newel stair, i.e. a stone staircase winding upwards inside an upright column in the angle of the walls. This was the usual type of building and one so constructed might well defy the most determined onslaught, more especially as the towers occupied positions naturally strong as the top of a precipitous hill, and were surrounded by a courtyard within a wall of enceinte. These towers, however, provided but cramped and inconvenient accommodation. As time went on, the need for defence became less urgent while the desire for further accommodation became more imperative. Wings were added, making the buildings approximate to the plan of a mansion built round a quadrangle. In the examples in Clackmannanshire, the old quadrilateral tower is seen to be the main body of the building, and the later additions, more extensive and, in one case, higher than the original tower, are merely adjuncts to it.
Probably the oldest castle in the county, as it is certainly the finest in situation, is Castle Campbell. It stands, one mile north of Dollar, on the crest of a rock surrounded by deep wooded ravines on all sides except the north, its only accessible side in former days. A modern pathway up the glen to the castle was opened in 1865. The Castle passed, by marriage, into the hands of the Campbell family about the middle of the fifteenth century ; and the new owner obtained in 1489 an Act of Parliament changing its old name of Castle Gloume. The chief incidents in its history were the visit of John Knox in 1556, the burning of the castle by Montrose in 1645, and its by Cromwell's soldiers in 1652. The little knoll on the green sward in front of the castle, and between it and the edge of the cliff, is reputed to be the place where the great Reformer dispensed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. After the Castle's partial destruction by Montrose, it was allowed to fall into disrepair ; in 1805 the Argyll family sold the property to the Taits of Harviestoun, who sold it to Sir Andrew Orr in 1859. The original keep of Castle Campbell shows all the regular features mentioned above. It is a plain quadrilateral structure of four storeys, three of them vaulted ; while the parapet supported on a corbel course has rounded bartizans with carved gargoyles. From the ground level, a straight flight of stairs in the thickness of the wall leads to the first floor, across which, in the opposite wall, another staircase leads to the upper floors. The horizontal position of the loopholes for firearms in the extension buildings shows them to be of later date. Other points of interest in the south wing are the fine entrance portico and the unusual feature of a corridor on the first floor connecting the two staircases and the apartments.
Alloa Tower, built about the commencement of the fourteenth century, was granted by David II in 1360 to Sir Robert Erskine in exchange for Strathgartney in Perthshire. The old newel staircase in the south-west angle still remains and the top floor with the battlements preserves its original features ; but otherwise the tower, especially the interior, has been considerably altered. Wings were added later to the old keep and in time an extensive range of buildings arose. The Erskines, in whose hands the property remains to-day, were for more than a hundred years the guardians of the royal heirs to the throne of Scotland ; at Alloa Queen Mary spent part of her childhood, and here also, in later years, were brought up her son James, and James's heir, the young Prince Henry. The present seat of the family, Alloa Park, was erected in 1838. The white freestone, of which this handsome mansion in the Grecian style is built, was obtained from quarries on the estate.
Clackmannan Tower, whether built, as tradition asserts, by King Robert Bruce or not, was certainly a royal domain till 1359, when David II granted it to a relation, Sir Robert Bruce, in whose family it remained till 1791. It is now the property of the Marquis of Zetland. The oldest portion of the building is the rectangular tower on the north side. The south wing was added about 1500 as the style of the fine fireplace on the second floor helps to prove ; and it is a unique feature that the new wing was carried to a height greater than that of the original keep. Later additions of the seventeenth century include the walls round the forecourt with the moat and drawbridge in front, the belfry on the watch turret, and the Renaissance arch and entablature of the east doorway.
Besides providing additional accommodation by adding wings, the later proprietors sometimes erected buildings round the inside of the walls of enceinte. An example of this occurs at Old Sauchie Tower, where a house was added to the west wall in 1631. The keep itself, standing in the grounds of Schaw Park, was erected about the middle of the fifteenth century by Sir James Schaw, whose family arms and motto "I mein weill" may be seen in the tympanum above the entrance door in the western wall. The motto which can, perhaps, be made out in the tympana above the dormer windows to the left and right of this door, is "En bien faisant " on the left, continuing "je me contente" on the right. The property remained in the hands of this distinguished family for nearly four hundred years. In 1752 Sir John Schaw died leaving an only child as heiress. She married Charles, Lord Cathcart, whose grandson sold the property to the present owner, the Earl of Mansfield.
Little is now left of the once large mansion of Menstrie Castle, where Sir William Alexander, the first Earl of Stirling, was born. He was Secretary of State for Scotland, 1626 - 1640, one of the leaders of the enterprise for colonising Nova Scotia, and a poet of some merit. The only part of Menstrie Castle now fairly well preserved is the south front, where the entrance gateway is worthy of notice, exhibiting a somewhat curious example of that mixture of Scottish and Classic architecture which is characteristic of the seventeenth century.
The chief mansions in the county, besides Alloa Park and Schaw Park, are Kennet House, built in the early years of the nineteenth century, the seat of the Bruces of Kennet, who, in 1868, established their claim to the Barony of Balfour of Burleigh ; Alva House ; Harviestoun Castle, built in the Italian style in 1804, a new porch and tower being added in 1860 ; Tillicoultry House, built 1806 ; Tullibody House.
The ecclesiastical architecture of the county is not of great interest. Tullibody church was built by David I in 1149, but Tullibody is no longer a separate parish and regular service has long been discontinued in the old building. The existing parish churches of Clackmannanshire are all modern buildings dating from the first half of the nineteenth century and are mostly Gothic in style.
13. Distribution of Population.
Communications.
The courses followed by the roads and the positions of the urban centres of population are, in a sense, mutually dependent. Modern roads - improved highways representing older beaten tracks - have been constructed for the purpose of connecting the larger centres of population ; but it is also true that a highway once constructed attracts inhabitants. Other things being equal, people prefer to live close to the highway, where they can most readily obtain the benefit of easy communication. In Clackmannanshire, generally speaking the roads have influenced the positions of the towns rather than the towns the direction of the roads. From Stirling roads lead into the Fife peninsula along the narrow stretch of flat ground between the river Forth and the steep southern face of the Ochils, but, where this narrow passage opens out eastwards, the ridge of the Cleish Hills splits it in two. Hence there are two main roads from Stirling into Fife : one north of the Cleish hills through Kinross, and one south of the Cleish hills through Dunfermline. The towns of Clackmannanshire are found strung out along these two roads. Were there no other considerations to be taken into account, the towns might be expected at approximately equal intervals ; they would be small urban accretions, each with its church, school, inn, and shops serving the more essential needs of the immediate neighbourhood. A glance at the accompanying sketch map shows that the actual distribution of towns does fulfil such an expectation, but there are some further considerations to be noted. The place where the Forth ceases to wind is peculiarly suitable for the growth of a river port and here, in fact, grew up Alloa, a town which now holds more than half the burghal population of the county. In order to include Alloa, the southern or Dunfermline road leaves the direct line to bend southwards. The precise positions of the towns on the northern or Kinross road are obviously determined by the hillside burns. An abundant supply of pure water is always a desideratum, and was especially favourable to the woollen industry. A secondary system of roads connects the towns on the northern highway with those on the southern.
That the railway lines do not exactly correspond to the main roads is a consequence of the time and order of their development. The railway corresponding to the easier southern road was the first to be constructed. This was the Stirling and Dunfermline railway opened to traffic in 1850 ; with, in 1850; with, in 1851, a branch line from Alloa to Tillicoultry, at that time a prosperous town, whose rapid growth promised considerable traffic. When the more difficult construction of the railway corresponding to the northern road along the Devon valley was undertaken, the promoters, finding Tillicoultry already connected with Alloa, preferred to start their line from Tillicoultry instead of from Stirling. Thus the Stirling-to-Tillicoultry section of the north road has no railway corresponding ; though, in 1863, the gap was partly filled up by the short branch which, leaving the Dunfermline line at Cambus, runs through Menstrie to Alva. The Devon valley line was finally opened to traffic on the completion of the difficult section from Dollar to Rumbling Bridge in 1871. In 1875 this line was absorbed by the North British Railway. In 1883, the Caledonian Railway obtained access to Alloa by the bridge over the Forth. Since 1815 there has been regular communication in the summer months by steamer between Stirling, Alloa and Leith.
A table showing the distribution of population by parishes is appended :
| Density of Population per square mile, by parishes | Density in total area | Density in extra-burghal portion only |
| Alloa | 1530 | 522 |
| Alva | 470 | 81 |
| Clackmannan | 197 | 197 |
| Dollar | 167 | 53 |
| Tillicoultry | 415 | 147 |
The parish of Alloa, which occupies rather more than a fifth part of the county, contains more than half (55 %) of the total population of Clackmannanshire. It is the only parish whose population has increased during the last intercensal period. The burghal portion of the inhabitants of the county is almost exactly double the extra-burghal.
14. Administration.
In former times, the local government of the county was largely in the hands of the sheriff, who was both a judicial and an administrative officer. He possessed both criminal and civil jurisdiction. His administrative functions were partly military and partly financial : he had command over the militia and was responsible for its efficiency ; he had to collect and account for all feudal casualities, fines, and forfeitures. Later, though the office of sheriff was maintained, the real executive power passed, both in England and Scotland, into the hands of the resident county gentry. In Scotland, when acting in an administrative capacity, these were known as Commissioners of Supply, a body first established in 1667. As Commissioners of Supply, all were enrolled who had the necessary qualification, which varied from time to time but was always based on the possession of landed property. The whole structure of local government was reformed by the Acts of 1889 and 1894. The Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1889 established an elected County Council in every county. The chief duty of the Commissioners of Supply now is to appoint one-half of the numbers of the Standing Joint Committee, which controls police affairs and capital expenditure. All other administrative functions of the Commissioners were transferred to the County Council, which elects the other half of the Standing Joint Committee. The County Council also took over the powers of the County Road Trustees and became the Local Authority under the Public Health Acts. It now has the general oversight of the local government of the whole county with the exception of the burghs. For public health administration the counties are divided into districts, in each of which a District Committee is appointed, consisting of the county councillors for the district together with a representative from each parish council.
The Act of 1894 established parish councils whose chief duty is the management of poor relief, though they have also the control of footpaths and the power to provide recreation grounds, baths, libraries, and cemeteries. The administration of primary education belongs to school boards elected ad hoc, that of secondary and technical education is under the County Education Committee. This Committee is elected by the County Council and the chairmen of the school boards.
The earliest sheriff's account for Clackmannanshire in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland is Sir John Menteith's account for 1348 - 1359. It shows that the Crown then possessed considerable property within the county, for the receipts include the rents of several estates, crofts and orchards and a certain for the foggage of the Forest of Clackmannan. The disbursements include several royal gifts and also the fee to the sheriff as Constable of the Tower of Clackmannan. The office of sheriff was hereditary in the family of Menteith from the time of Sir John till 1631 ; in the family of Hope of Wester Granton, 1638 - 1666, and in that of Bruce of Clackmannan, 1666 - 1693. The last hereditary sheriff was the Earl of Dumfries, to whom, on the passing of the Heritable Jurisdictions Abolition Act, 1748, a sum of £2000 was paid as compensation for the loss of his office. The modern sheriff is now a judicial officer appointed by the Crown. Clackmannan shares a sheriff-principal with Stirling and Dumbarton, and a sheriff-substitute with Kinross. Nearly all the administrative functions formerly exercised by the sheriff are now vested in the County Council while his position as head of the territorial military forces has passed to the Lord Lieutenant. Clackmannan provides three companies (E, F, H) of the 7th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with a strength of seven officers and 270 men out of an establishment of 10 officers and 353 men.
There are four police burghs in the county : Alloa, Alva, Dollar, and Tillicoultry. Clackmannan was formerly a burgh of barony, but is now a "special district" for water, drainage, scavenging and lighting. For purposes of ecclesiastical administration, the parishes are in the presbyteries of Stirling and Dunblane within the synod of Stirling and Perth. The county is united with Kinross-shire for parliamentary representation.
15. Roll of Honour.
The Erskines of Alloa, the Menteiths, the Bruces of Clackmannan and their related house of Kennet, the Taits of Harviestoun, the Abercrombies of Brucefield and Tullibody, the Johnstones of Alva - all had a long and honourable connection with the county, a connection which, in some cases, still remains unbroken. It is possible here to record the achievements only of the most renowned scions of these houses.
The connection of the Erskine family with the Earldom of Mar is somewhat obscure. The direct line of the old Earls of Mar failed in 1374; and in 1391 Sir Thomas Erskine claimed the earldom in right of his wife. Their descendant John, the sixth Lord Erskine, received the title of Earl of Mar in 1565. Perhaps the most interesting member of this family is the Jacobite Earl, born at Alloa House in 1675. He was a Privy Councillor under William III ; in Anne's reign he changed sides more than once ; he was one of the chief promoters of the Union of 1707, which he soon professed to regret ; for years before Anne's death he was in communication with the Pretender, but he was enthusiastically ready to welcome the Hanoverian King. Mar's extraordinary versatility, even in an age when changing sides was no rarity, gained him the nickname of "Bobbing John." George I deprived him of his post as Secretary of State and of the hereditary guardianship of Stirling Castle. Under the Pretender's orders, Mar, August 1715, left London for Scotland to stir up war. On the 6th September the Jacobite standard was raised at Braemar. Perth was seized on the 16th, but the indecisive battle of Sheriffmuir, 13th November, proved fatal to the Jacobites. James landed at Peterhead on the 22nd December, but the absence of French support rendered the rising abortive ; and, early in February, the Prince, Mar and other leaders escaped to France. Mar never returned and died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732. The earldom was restored to his grandson in 1824. The present title of the head of the family is Earl of Mar and Kellie.
Of the Abercromby family, the most famous member was Sir Ralph, who was born at Menstrie in 1734 and had a distinguished military career in Flanders, the West Indies, and Egypt. When in command in the Mediterranean, he received orders to expel the French from Egypt, and, landing at Aboukir Bay on the 8th March, 1801, he was completely successful in resisting a violent attack by the French general, Menou. Unhappily, Sir Ralph was wounded in the thigh and died seven days later. Sir Ralph's third son James was elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1835 and, on relinquishing office ill 1839, was created Baron Dunfermline. Hence the claim, which was inscribed on an old village flag, that "Tullibody has served its country with valour in the field and with firmness in the Senate."
Another famous soldier was the first Lord Colville of Culross, to whom the estate of Tillicoultry belonged. He served under Henry of Navarre against the Catholic League. Raised to the peerage by James VI in 1609, he spent his latter years at Tillicoultry, where he died in 1620.
Of Churchmen, first mention must be made of the devout and kindly Vicar of Dollar, Thomas Forret, who made it a practice, unusual for incumbents in the sixteenth century, to preach every Sunday to his parishioners. For this he was denounced to the Bishop of Dunkeld as a heretic. Forret's friend, Thomas Locklaw, the last Romish priest to officiate in the church of Tullibody, also held unorthodox views ; and, in particular, renouncing celibacy, was married during Lent. Forret and four others were charged with being present at the marriage and then eating flesh, besides being chief heretics and teachers of heresy. Locklaw escaped to England ; but Forret was burned in the presence of the King on the Castle Hill at Edinburgh, in the spring of 1539.
Another famous ecclesiastic was Archibald Campbell Tait, the son of Crawford Tait of Harviestoun. Archibald Tait, after being Headmaster of Rugby, Dean of Carlisle, and Bishop of London, was enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury in 1869. His life work, therefore, was done beyond the borders of the county, a contrast to the case of his father, Crawford Tait, who devoted his life to the agricultural improvement of Clackmannanshire, and, indeed, is said to have almost ruined himself with his agricultural experiments.
To Art, to Science, and to Commerce, the county has contributed many eminent men ; but we must be content to select one representative from each sphere.
David Allan (1744 -1796), born at Alloa, was enabled through the generosity of the county families to study art in Rome, where his picture, The Origin of Painting or the Corinthian Maid drawing the shadow of her lover," won the gold medal of St Luke's. After a few years' portrait-painting in London, he settled in Edinburgh and was appointed, in 1786, Master of the Edinburgh Academy of Arts. He now devoted his talents to depicting the manners, customs, and scenes of his own country. The "Scotch Wedding" and the "Highland Dame" are perhaps the two best examples of his art.
Robert Dick (1811 - 1866) was born at Tullibody, and in 1830 set up as a baker in Thurso. He devoted his leisure time to the study of nature, and gradually acquired a thorough knowledge of the botany and geology of the north-eastern corner of Scotland. No works of his were ever published; but his authority was widely recognised and Hugh Miller warmly acknowledged his invaluable aid.
John McNabb (1732 - 1802), born near Dollar, started life as a herd-boy. He migrated to London, and during a long life spent in sea-faring and ship-owning amassed a large fortune. On his death, he left £56,000 to endow "a charity or school for the poor of the parish of Dollar." Some difficulty was encountered in interpreting his wishes ; but eventually in 1819 the Dollar Institution was erected. It has become one of the great schools of Scotland, and numbers among its distinguished alumni Sir James Dewar, Sir David Gill, and the Swettenhams of Malay fame. [Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham GCMG CH]
16. The chief towns and villages of Clackmannanshire.
The figures in brackets after each name give the population in 1911.
Alloa (11,893), a police burgh and the largest town in the county, is the administrative and commercial centre. At Alloa the neap tide rises some 15 feet, the spring tide about 23 feet, the port having the additional advantage of double, or, as they are locally called, " leaky " tides. This return of the flood tide, after the water has sunk downwards for a foot or more, appears to be due to the constriction of the river channel at Queensferry hindering the free egress of the ebbing water. Tradition, scorning so mundane a reason, asserts that the extra tide has persistently recurred since the day when it was first sent to the help of St Mungo, whose vessel had run aground on its way to Stirling. Alloa was made an independent port in 1840 and its district now includes the smaller ports or creeks of Charlestown, Clackmannan Pow, Inverkeithing, Kennetpans, Kincardine, St David's, and Stirling. The Board of Trade returns for the district show that in 1911 the value of the total exports - almost exclusively coal - to foreign countries was £81,718, and the value of the total imports from foreign countries was £170,440, of which wood and timber accounted for £128,450, stones and slates for £41,202. The last item first appeared in the returns for 1909 and represents stone imported at Limekilns for the Rosyth Naval Base. In recent years Alloa has benefited greatly by the munificence of the Paton family.
Alva (4332), a police burgh three miles north of Alloa, is engaged in the woollen industry. The name, formerly spelled Alveth, is derived fromn a Gaelic word ailbheach, "rocky."
Cambus, a village at the confluence of the Devon and the Forth, noted for its distillery. The name is Gaelic, " the bend of the water ".
Clackmannan (1385), a small town on the Black Devon river, at the mouth of which river is the creek of Clackmannan Pow. The town, now dwindling in size and importance, still claims to be considered the county town. At the top of the old cross are carved the arms of the Bruce family, whose chief seat for many generations was Clackmannan.
Coalsnaughton, a collier village about a mile to the south of Tillicoultry.
Devonside, a village, on the Devon, between Tillicoultry and Coalsnaughton. It is united with the latter as a special district (pop. 1353) for water and lighting, but Devonside with its brick and tile works dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century, whereas Coalsnaughton or Coalsnachton has quite a long history.
Dollar (1497), the smallest of the four police burghs, is situated close to the point where the Devon enters the county. Its beautiful and healthy situation and the educational advantages afforded by the Dollar Institution combine to make Dollar a residential town rather than an industrial centre. It has extensive bleachfields. The famous engineer, James Watt, reported that the Devon might be made navigable as far as Dollar at an estimated cost of £2000 ; but nothing was ever done to carry out the scheme.
Forest Mill, a small hamlet on the north margin of the forest at a point the Clackmannan and Kinross road crosses the Black Devon. Michael Bruce, the young author of Lochleven, was schoolmaster here in 1766.
Kennet, a mining village, one mile east of Clackmannan. To the west of the village is Kennet House, the family seat of the Bruces of Kennet.
Kennetpans, a small village on the shore of Clackmannan parish, with a small harbour.
Kilbagie, a small village in Clackmannan parish, was formerly noted for its distillery; but at the present time its only industry is paper-making.
Menstrie (667), a village in Alva parish, on the Stirling-to-Kinross road, is engaged in the woollen manufacture. Like the other villages and towns along the foot of the Ochils, Menstrie has a very beautiful situation.
Sauchie, a village on the Alloa-to-Tillicoultry road. There are also the villages of Old Sauchie near the Devon, and New Sauchie on the outskirts of Alloa. The population of the special scavenging and lighting district of Sauchie is 2844, and the people are mostly workers in the coal mines.
Tillicoultry (3105), a police burgh two miles east of Alva and, like that town, engaged in the woollen industry. There is little vestige of the stone circle which formerly stood on the Cuninghar, a rising ground behind the town.
Tullibody (838), in the east of Alloa parish, is one of the oldest villages in the county. The old church is the mausoleum of the Abercrombies and contains many tributes to the various members of that distinguished family.