Pool of Muckhart and Yetts o' Muckhart are located in the parish of Muckhart on the northeastern edge of Clackmannanshire. Muckhart is grouped with the 'Hillfoots' villages in Clackmannanshire, as it lies on the A91 around 3 miles northeast of Dollar.
Pool of Muckhart lies at the foot of 'Seamab' hill, in the strath of the river Devon, near the entrance to Glen Devon. The population for the Muckhart and Dollar area combined is estimated at around 2,877.
Previously Muckhart was part of Perthshire. It was transferred to Clackmannanshire in a reorganisation of council boundaries in 1971. The parish boundary extends to the outer edge of Dollar. Due to local byelaws at the time, the village primary school is located in the centre of the parish, which is over half a mile west of the outer edge of the main village. It is also some distance from the main road, on a small country road (Drumbum Road). The school is aligned with the old coach road to Dollar, which between the village and the school terminates as a road on School Road and becomes a pedestrian path along the edge of the golf course to the school (locally known as the Cinder Path).
The Muckhart Inn, an early 18th-century coaching inn, lies at the point where the old coach road and modern road would have converged. The main mansion house in the parish is Ballilisk, which lies north of the A91 between the two villages. In pre-Reformation times it served as a rectory to the adjacent chapel. It was birthplace and home of Bishop Paton in the 16th century. It was replaced by a new manse (to its west) around 1750 and was then sold. Rebuilt around 1800 it was home to the Izatt family for almost two centuries.
The war memorial, on the western edge of the village by the main road, is by local sculptor George Henry Paulin, son of Muckhart's then minister, Rev George Paulin.
In the churchyard is the family monument to the Christies of Cowden. This local estate was famed for its Japanese garden which has recently been renovated. Its original Japanese gardener is buried at the end of the Christie lair.
Muckhart Golf Club lies on Drumbum Road south of the village. Set on a series of low rocky hills it includes several challenging holes. There are three nine-hole courses, named Arndean, Cowden, and Naemoor. The nine-hole Cowden course was opened by Miss Ella Christie, who provided 55 acres of land, in 1908. A second nine-hole course, the Ardean course was added in the late 1960's on land leased from Colonel (later Sir) Robert Christie Stewart, then Lord-Lieutenant of the county. A third nine-hole course named Naemoor was opened in 1998.
The hamlet of Yetts o' Muckhart is around a quarter mile east of Pool of Muckhart. A tollhouse was established here in the early 19th century on a road used by cattle drovers and coaches. Yett is a Scots word for "gate", also used in reference to hill passes.
The Cowden estate lies just to the south of the Ochil Hills, on the A91 just over 1 mile west of the Pool of Muckhart. The estate once centred on Cowden Castle, a traditional Scottish stone-built castle of various dates, originating around 1500. This was demolished in 1950. Some of the early outbuildings, such as the sawmill range and belltower from the 17th century, still survive. Archbishop Lambert built a house named "Castleton" on the property in 1320. The Bruces of Clackmannanshire owned the estate from 1758. The estate was sold to John Christie in 1866 who renamed the property "Cowden Castle". Traditionally the estate finances depended upon woodland management and the raising of deer and pheasants. John Christie was reported to own 616 acres in 1873. In 1893 the castle was extended, the design for this by Glasgow architects Honeyman and Keppie.
Miss Ella Christie, John's daughter, after her visit to Japan in 1907, commissioned a Japanese garden. It was designed by Taki Handa, a student at Doshisha University, Japan who was studying at Studley College, around 1908, and was planted at Cowden on a 7-acre site, which she named Shah-rak-uenor, meaning place of 'pleasure and delight'. Queen Mary visited the garden in 1932. The garden was maintained by a Japanese man named Matsuo until his death in 1936, after which Miss Christie maintained the garden until her death in 1949. The garden then fell into disrepair and was closed in 1955. In 2013, Christie's great-niece Sara Stewart began restoring the Japanese garden, which re-opened to the public in 2019.
Cowden Castle burned in 1950 and was pulled down in 1952. Much of the valuables from the house survived and were removed to Arndean. Many items of furniture were distributed among the estate houses, thereafter the estate was merged into the Arndean Estate, the seat of the Stewart family. Still surviving are Cowden's stables and the east and west lodges. The estate sawmill buildings still survive amid the woods, these date from the mid 18th century. Several modern houses have been built within the estate, many hidden in its wooded grounds.
Muckhart Mill is situated at the confluence of Hole Burn, which powered the Mill, and the river Devon. Records of Muckhart Mill date back to 1560. Later on, the Douglas family sold the mill to Bishop James Paton, who subsequently passed ownership of the farm to Archibald Campbell, 5th Earl of Argyll around 1571. The Mill is category B listed. It is believed to have one of Scotland's largest overshot waterwheels which was renovated into working condition by the current owner several years ago but is no longer in operation. It is even rarer a building as there is evidence of a smaller waterwheel, possibly on the same axle as the main one, but on the other side of the building. There you can find a second water channel running alongside the building which exits under a small bridge and into the river Devon.
Further up the farm track lies a category B listed 19th century limekiln, once owned by the Carron Iron Company. The company was at the forefront of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom and built the Carron Iron Works near Falkirk in 1759.
Muckhart has one of Clackmannanshire's few remaining K6 telephone boxes.