A Big House, Two Kelpies and a Remarkable Wheel
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| Scotland |
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| Falkirk District Council |
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| Forres, Falkirk and Lanark are marked in red Thanks to Lonely Planet for lending me their map |
12-July-2023
Falkirk
Central Scotland sometimes feels like a vast agglomeration of small towns all running one into another until eventually they reach either Glasgow or
Edinburgh. That is, of course, an exaggeration, aerial photos show extensive
green space in Central Scotland - but they can be harder to find on the ground.
Falkirk’s earliest recorded name was the Brythonic Egglesbreth meaning ‘speckled church.’ Other names, An Eaglais Bhreac (Scottish Gaelic) Varia Capella (Latin), La Veire Chapelle (Normans) and Fawkirk, later Falkirk (Scots) have the same meaning. The relevant church was probably built in the 7th century
Now best known for having a not particularly successful football team, Falkirk is a small town with around 35,000 inhabitants. It is the administrative centre of Falkirk District Council which covers the town and a dozen or more smaller communities, including the port and petrochemicals centre of Grangemouth, and Stenhousemuir, home of an even less successful professional football team. Falkirk District has a population of 160,000.
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| In the course of this post we will visit Falkirk town centre, The Pineapple House to the north, Helix Park to the east and the Falkirk Wheel to the west |
Falkirk Centre
We arrived in late afternoon and checked into the Park Hotel. Built in the later years of the last century, it would win no architectural awards, the kindest word I can say for it is functional. The receptionist, though, was cheerful and welcoming and we booked dinner – we have learned in Scotland that no booking can result in a frustrating search.
Our room overlooked Dollar Park, a pleasant aspect.
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| Dollar Park (across the lovely expanse of the hotel car park!) |
Needing a pharmacy (nothing major) we walked the five minutes into Falkirk's almost pedestrianised town centre. The outskirts of the
town had mixed industrial, commercial and domestic properties, but the hotel was surrounded by
larger more prosperous homes. We passed a row of smaller, nicely kept bungalows, the gardens of three adjacent houses so spectacular they must enjoy their rivalry.
The town centre looks rather less prosperous with too many shops closed and some of the survivors looking down at heal. A loose
cluster of three shops, Whimsic Alley…
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| Whimsic Alley, Falkirk |
…The Lonely Broomstick, and Shining Light, ‘Scotland's centre for tarot reading,’ made us wonder if we had walked into some Poundshop
Glastonpotter.
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| The Lonely Broomstick, Falkirk |
We are twice tapped for money, once by an elderly busker, who stopped playing to ensure be got paid, and by a somewhat confused woman who was not as old as she first appeared and apparently wanted us to fund her drug habit. These accusations are easy to throw about, but I know nothing of her life and what led her to approaching strangers for money on the street. It cannot be easy for her, and I should be less judgmental. We gave her a pound, 'for food.'
The High Street widens into the Market Square, overlooked by the Falkirk Steeple. In England a steeple is always part of a church, in Scotland a free-standing steeple sometimes houses the tolbooth (formerly the Town Hall/Gaol) (see Dumfries for another example). The first steeple on this site was constructed in 1697 and demolished because of subsidence in 1803. The current steeple was built in 1814 to house the town clock and bells and also contains two cells (unused since 1860).
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| Falkirk Steeple |
A plaque on the steeple wall drew our attention to the nearby Cross Well, a cylinder of stones surmounted by a barely recognisable
lion. In 1817 the Earl of Callendar drew the first clean water available in the
town centre and, according to the plaque, addressed his remarks to the ‘wives
and bairns of Falkirk.’ The people of Falkirk have called themselves ‘the bairns’
ever since. Alternatively, the name comes from the town’s old motto Touch
Ane, Touch A' - Better Meddle Wi' the Deil then the Bairns o' Falkirk. I do
not know which came first, but they sound aggressive.
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| Cross Well, Falkirk |
Having located the pharmacy, we continued through the town centre past the mandatory ‘House where Robert Burns slept’…
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| Burns slept in many place It is surprising how many 18th century buildings survive |
… to the end of pedestrianised zone where we were rewarded with a view of the next section of the town. We have seen tower
blocks like these before (and there are more than this picture shows) but only
in Eastern Europe, left over from the days before the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
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| A view of Falkirk's 'Stalinist Quarter' |
13-July-2023
Dollar Park
Filling in time before Callendar House opened we strolled across the road to Dollar Park, named after lumber baron and shipping magnate Robert Dollar who donated it to his home town.
It is a pleasant little park containing the town’s war memorial,…
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| Falkirk war memorial |
…some venerable trees…
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| Old tree, Dollar Park, Falkirk |
… and a flower clock (with correct time) in memory of Falkirk born botanist and plant hunter George Forrest
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| George Forrest flower clock, Dollar Park, Falkirk |
Callendar House
In the dip behind the unlovely tower blocks, is a very different type of building.
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| Callendar House, Falkirk |
Callendar House, now owned by Falkirk Council and run as a museum, is surrounded by Callendar Park. Although modified in the 19th
century to resemble a French Renaissance Chateau, the core of the building is
a 14th century tower house.
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| Callendar House, Falkirk |
By the start of late middle-ages the diverse
inhabitants of the area were blending together. The Old Welsh speaking Brythonic
people who had been here since before the Romans had been joined by the Scots,
a Gaelic speaking tribe who arrived from Ireland in the 9th century. Then came Saxons,
pushed north by the invading Normans, and later by Normans invited by King
David I (ruled 1124-53) because he admired Norman civilization. The King
himself was a descendant of the Pictish ruling family from further north who
started styling themselves Rex Scottorum in the 12th century.
Local rulers were the Thanes of Callendar, the remains of their Thane House lie just east of the current building. The 5th Thane, Sir
Patrick Callendar backed one of the many losers in the Scottish Wars 1296-1328,
and David II (the son of the winner, Robert the Bruce – descended from the Norman de Brus
family) gave the Callendar lands to Sir William Livingstone (descended from the
Saxon Leving family) in 1345.
They built the Tower House at the heart of the modern building and by the 17th century had developed it considerably.
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| Callendar House in the 17th century |
Like the Callendars before them, the Livingstons lost the house when James Livingston, 5th Earl of Linlithgow backed the wrong side, in his case the Jacobites in 1715. The estates were forfeited and sold to the York Buildings Company who immediately leased it back to the earl’s daughter Lady Anne Livingston. She and her husband made the same mistake in 1745, he was executed, but she was allowed to stay in the house and so was her son until his death in 1778.
The house was put up for auction and William Forbes, an Aberdeen coppersmith who made his pile from Royal Navy contracts, outbid Lord
Errol. Times were changing,
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| Callendar house during the Forbes times (Public Domain, borrowed from Wikipedia) |
Forbes built the house as it is today, and his descendants kept it for 200 years, but nothing lasts forever. In 1963 it was sold to Falkirk Burgh and in 2011 transferred
to the Falkirk Community Trust. It is now part stately home, part museum and
part art gallery.
The stately home includes the restored Georgian kitchen….
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| Georgian kitchen, Callendar House |
…and the grand staircase…
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| Staircase, Callendar House |
…which is even better looking up.
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| Staircase ceiling, Callendar House |
The museum deals with the history of the house and the effects of the industrial revolution. William Forbes and men like him ensured Falkirk was a centre of the Scottish industry.
The town was home to several ironworks, producing domestic and industrial products. The three-legged cauldron was typical of Falkirk.
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| Falkirk ironware, Callendar House |
Some produced items so exquisite they could only be given to important retirees and whose only real use is to adorn a museum.
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| Beautiful but unusable tee service, Callendar House |
Less threatening to the environment than the ironworks were clockmakers. Peter Keir worked in the High Street from 1806-34. William Dobbie founded a
clockmaker’s that prospered for three generations and John Russell became
watchmaker to the Prince Regent.
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| Falkirk Clocks |
The gallery during our visit displayed the works of Falkirk born Barbara Rae who specialises in rather impressive industrial scenes…
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| Barbara Rae industrial scene |
…and equally fine landscapes and seascapes.
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| Barbara Rae seascape |
It is a house well worth a visit, and not all the attractions are inside…
The Antonine Wall
Everyone knows about Hadrian’s Wall. Completed in 122CE, it stretches some 73 miles (117km) across northern England from the Solway
Firth to the North Sea.
The Antonine Wall is less well known. Built 20 years later an 70 miles further north it crosses the thinnest part of Scotland - 37 miles (59 km) between the Firth of Clyde and Forth. Built of turf on a stone foundation it had mile forts like Hadrian's Wall, though everything was to a smaller scale.
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| Altar from an Antonine Wall mile fort, Callendar House Inscription reads (P)ro se et svis - I discharged this vow on behalf of myself and my family) |
Antoninus’ rule was marked by peace throughout the empire, except in Scotland, where his little adventure started well, but the Caledonians proved recalcitrant and after 20 years of trying the Romans retreated to Hadrian’s wall. There is not a great deal left of the Antonine Wall, but enough for its line to be easily traced. It crosses the land of Callendar House, and if this it not the most spectacular section, it is the only part I have photographed.
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| A part of the Antonine Wall |
The Dunmore Pineapple
Some 8 miles (11 km) north of Falkirk centre, just beyond the village of Airth, tucked away in the countryside and surrounded by trees is
what some claim to be the strangest building in Scotland. It is easy enough to
find, if you have faith that the track your sat nav has chosen will not peter
out in a forest.
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| Lynne and the Dunmore Pineapple |
It is hard to imagine the excitement caused in the 17th century by the arrival of the pineapple on our damp, misty island. Pineapples
were exotic and difficult to obtain and thus very desirable and very expensive.
The rich and fashionable would hire one for a dinner party. It would adorn the
fruit-bowl, but remain untouched, so it could be hired out gain for the next
society event.
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| A closer view of the Dunmore Pineapple |
The next stage was to grow pineapples, and gardeners in stately homes soon found themselves labouring in pineries. The first Scottish
grown pineapple appeared in 1728. In the days before cheap imports, growing
your own seemed reasonable, building your own was downright eccentric, but that
is what the Earl of Dunmore did in 1761. He built it as a summer house where he
could sit and admire his estate.
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| A close-up of the Dunmore Pineapple |
The estate is now gone, Dunmore House is a ruin, but the National Trust saved the Pineapple. They use it as a holiday home, so all
we could do was stare at it and take photographs.
We next drove back south to Helix Park where we had lunch and revisited the Kelpies, but we shall join the 2021 narrative for that
11-July-2021
Helix Park and The Kelpies
In 2003 the Falkirk Greenscape Initiative formed a plan to transform 350ha of land between Falkirk and Grangemouth into an ecopark and
the centre of a network of footpaths connecting 16 local communities.
A major lottery grant enabled the park to open in 2013 and the Queen Elizabeth extension to the Forth and Clyde canal arrived a year later.
In the 18th century the Forth and Clyde allowed sea-going vessels to
cross the narrowest part of Scotland, saving long and dangerous voyages around
the north. Over time its use declined, it fell into disrepair and closed in 1963. Rediscovered in the 1990s it was refurbished and reopened in 1999 as a leisure facility. The extension to Helix Park gave it a new starting point - the Kelpies Hub.
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| The Kelpies, Helix Park, Falkirk |
The Kelpies, the work of sculptor Andy Scott, had been commissioned for this spot and they were installed in 2014. In Scottish folklore, kelpies are
shape-shifting spirits inhabiting lakes or rivers. Usually horse-like creatures they are
able to adopt human form, though often retaining their hooves.
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| One of the Kelpies, Helix Park, Falkirk |
Scott’s 30m high kelpies are undoubtedly water spirits, but they also commemorate the horses that pulled the barges on the canals. Full of life and vigour, The Kelpies have been a popular and critical success. The park was crowded with locals on a Sunday afternoon and we were not the only visitors who had come just to see the kelpies.
The Falkirk Wheel
The best way to get from the Kelpies to the Falkirk wheel is by canal, but our time was limited so we drove the 8km from from Grangemouth to half way between Falkirk and Bonnybridge (without ever
leaving the built-up area).
The Union Canal, running from Edinburgh to Falkirk, closed two years after the Forth and Clyde and was similarly restored in the 1990s. The
reconnection of the two canals was a millennium project.
The Union Canal is much higher than the Forth and Clyde, a problem the original builders solved with a flight of 11 locks. Unfortunately, it took the best part of a day
to make the ascent/descent which washed 3,500 tonnes of water from the Union Canal. A
better solution, the restorers decided, was a boat lift, and the result is the
Falkirk wheel.
The Union Canal is carried to the wheel on a new aqueduct.
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| A narrow boat approaches the wheel, though there is still a final lock to go through |
At the wheel the boat enters a caisson which can carry up to 4 canal boats, the gates are closed...
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| Boats are loaded top and bottom and the wheel is ready to turn. |
The wheel rotates. Boat(s) can be carried up at the same time as they are brought down. The whole process takes ten minutes and there is no net water transfer between the canals.
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| The Falkirk Wheel turns |
If it were possible for something to be grossly over-engineered, yet elegant and simple, this would be it. It was designed to last 120 years – I hope
enough boats will pass through to make building it a worthwhile investment.
Part 1 Falkirk
Part 2 Banff and Macduff
Part 3 Pitmedden Gardens and Haddo House
Part 4 Lossiemouth to Elgin
Part 5 A Rainy Day in Dumfries (1) Robert Burns
Part 6 A Rainy Day in Dumfries (2) Caerlaverock Castle