Ochil Hills
The Ochil Hills is a range of hills in Scotland north of the Forth valley bordered by the towns of Stirling, Kinross and Perth. The only major roads crossing the hills pass through Glen Devon/Glen Eagles and Glenfarg, the latter now replaced except for local traffic by the M90 Edinburgh-Perth motorway cutting through the eastern foothills; the hills are part of a Devonian lava extrusion whose appearance today is due to the Ochil Fault which results in the southern face of the hills forming an escarpment. The plateau is undulating with the highest point being Ben Cleuch at 721 m; the south-flowing burns have cut deep ravines including Dollar Glen, Silver Glen and Alva Glen only passable with the aid of wooden walkways. The hills, combined with the town being built at the lowest bridge-point on the River Forth, led to Stirling's importance as a main gateway to the Highlands, they acted as a boundary to the Kingdom of Fife. Castle Campbell was built at the head of Dollar Glen in the late 15th century as a visible symbol of the Campbell domination of the area.
Sheriffmuir, the site of the 1715 battle of the Jacobite rising is on the northern slopes of the hills. In the early Industrial Revolution, several mill towns such as Tillicoultry and Menstrie grew up in the shadow of the Ochils to tap the water power; some of the mills are open today as museums. Blairdenon Hill was the site of one of the Beacons of Dissent during the G8 protests in July 2005. A proposal for an 18 turbine development at Green Knowes, south of Auchterarder, north of Glendevon was approved in June 2006; the development will be situated about 400 m north of the Ben Thrush summit. This is now complete. In early 2007 approval was given for the construction of a wind farm consisting of thirteen 102 m turbines on Burnfoot Hill, which lies north of Tillicoultry and Ben Cleuch and to the south of the Upper Glendevon Reservoir. Construction of this site has begun. Andrew Gannel Hill Ben Buck Ben Cleuch Ben Ever Ben Shee Blairdenon Burnfoot Hill Colsnaur Hill Tarmangie White Wisp The Law Kings Seat Greenforet Hill Innerdownie Mickle Corum Scad Hill Bengengie Hill Grodwell Hill Core Hill Sauchanwood Hill Wood Hill Craig Leith Wether Hill Bald Hill Elistoun Hill Craigentaggert Hill Steele's Knowe Sim's Hill Glentye Hill Eastbow Hill Commonedge Hill Hillfoot Hill The Nebit The Seat Kinpauch Hill Dumyat Loss Hill Craig Rossie Myreton Hill Black Hill Bank Hill Seamab Hill Interactive Photographic Panorama of the Ochils – Ochil Hills interactive panorama Computer generated summit panoramas North from Ben Cleuch South from Ben Cleuch index Clacksweb - Ochil Hills Ochils Mountain Rescue Team Ochil Hills Pronunciation Ochils Mountaineering Club Ochils Landscape Partnership Friends of the Ochils Alva Glen Heritage Trust
Tullibody Old Kirk
Tullibody Old Kirk is a ruined 12th-century church in Tullibody, Scotland. It was rebuilt in the 16th century, restored again in 1760; the roofless building is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. In 1904, St Serf's Parish Church was built to the north of the Old Kirk, afterwards disused; the church measures 19 by 6.7 metres. The bellcote on the western gable dates from 1772, while the western windows and the south porch are 19th-century additions. Two doorways survive from the 16th century, including one dated 1539. Significant monuments include that of George Abercromby, the Haig memorial on the north wall; the surrounding burial ground is a Category B listed building. During the Scottish Reformation, William Kirkcaldy destroyed the bridge at Tullibody in an attempt to prevent French troops from retreating to the Siege of Leith at the end of January 1560. However, the French removed the roof of Tullibody Kirk and used it to bridge the Devon
Tillicoultry
Tillicoultry is a town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. One of the Hillfoots Villages on the A91, which runs from Stirling to St. Andrews, Tillicoultry is situated at the southern base of the Ochil Hills, which provide a spectacular backdrop; the River Devon lies to the south. The river runs through neighbouring villages Dollar and Alva to the east and west respectively; the former mining village of Coalsnaughton lies just south. Tillicoultry is referred to as "Tilly" by the locals; the mount referred to by the name is most Kirkhill at the east of the town. The alternative Latin etymology, Tellus culta, the cultivated land, suggested by Rev. William Osborne, minister of the parish from 1773 to 1794, is unlikely, as the prefix "tilly-" or "tullie-" can be found in a number of other Scottish names anglicised as "Tulach"; the estate of Tillicoultry was taken from Aleumus de Meser in 1261 by Alexander III for failure to render due feudal services. The estate had been received by de Meser's father Aleumus, from Alexander II.
It was granted to William Count of Mar and remained in possession of the Mar, by marriage of Margaret, Countess of Mar, to William Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas, the Douglas family until 1483, when it changed hands to the ancestors of Lord Colville of Culross. By 1634 it was sold to Sir William Alexander of Menstrie. Between 1644 and 1840, ownership of the estate changed hands frequently; the origins of the village lie in the Westertown area, where the road to Stirling crossed the Tillicoultry Burn. It is thought that the centre of Westertown was in the area now known as Shillinghill. There are records of a Parish church existing in Tillicoultry from 1639, the current minister being Colin Coyle, who only replaced the shamed Neil McMurray, knowledge of cloth manufacture dating from the 1560s. Traces of a Druid circle, sixty feet in diameter, were found in the eastern area of the parish at the end of the 18th century. A Pictish fortress stood upon the Castle Craig, near the current site of Craigfoot Quarry on Wood Hill, to the west of Tillicoultry Glen.
This has long since been ruined, however legend has it that the stone of the fortress was employed in the building of Stirling Castle. Due to the rapid growth of the village during the 19th century, there were problems with overcrowding, poor housing, high infant mortality, water supply and drainage. In an attempt to address these problems, Tillicoultry Burgh was created in 1871, it lasted until 1975. Around 1930, one of the first bus stations in the country was built at Murray Square to serve the eight bus services which terminated in the town; the original glass and cast iron shelters were replaced by modern shelters some time ago. Despite the growth in car ownership and the corresponding decline in public transport and indeed all the Hillfoots villages, retain a regular bus service; the old Harviestoun estate, where Archibald Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, spent much of his boyhood, lies East-North-East of the village. Robert Burns visited the estate in the summer of 1787, during his stay he wrote The Banks of the Devon and Fairest Maid on Devon Banks.
A commemorative cairn at the roadside, near the east lodge to Harviestoun, marks this event. The burn which runs off the Ochils and down through the glen into west of the village provided an attractive source of water for the early textile industry in Tillicoultry, being used for the washing and dying of wool. During the early 18th century a cloth known as Tillicoultry Serge was manufactured by weaving worsted with linen. By the time of the industrial revolution the burn was a recognised source of power, with the first mill being established in the 1790s. Many more textile mills were built along the burnside, by the 1830s, steam powered mills were introduced and by 1870 there were 12 mills employing over 2000 people; as the industry expanded, more workers were attracted to the village. The population of the parish, which had stood less than 1000 at the turn of the 19th century, had grown to over 4500 by the early 1850s. Textile mills and coal mines remained the biggest employers of the local population until the first half of the 20th century.
In the 1950s the most recent colliery to be worked, on the south bank of the River Devon, set new productivity records due to a high level of mechanisation. Its impressive adit entrance, now safely bricked up, can still be seen. In 1851, due to the importance of Tillicoultry as an industrial centre, it became the first Hillfoots village to have a rail connection. In 1921 Samuel Jones Limited established a paper mill at Devonvale, the current site of Sterling Furniture. In 1926, 33 people were employed at the site and the firm returned its first profit. By 1936, 238 staff were employed by the company. Sydney Platfoot was appointed Managing Director of the Devonvale works in 1922, he went on to become town provost from 1930 to 1936. In 1964, the company merged with Wiggins Teape and by 1967 employed a fifth of the working population. Tillicoultry Quarries Ltd, as the name suggests, was established in 1930 by R. W. Menzies at Craigfoot Quarry Tillicoultry, remains 100% owned by the Menzies family.
Quarrying no longer takes places in Tillicoultry, the companies Head office is based in nearby Kincardine. Quartz-dolerite was first extracted in 1930 from the now inoperative Craigfoot Quarry, however quarrying had taken place on a smaller scale at the site since 1880. On 26 January 1949 the quarry was the site of a tragic exp
Dollar, Clackmannanshire
Dollar is a small town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. It is one of the Hillfoots Villages, situated between the Ochil Hills range to the north and the River Devon to the south. Dollar is on the A91 road; the town is around 3 miles east of Tillicoultry. The parish of Muckhart extends right up to the eastern edge of Dollar, despite Muckhart's much smaller size; this encompassed Dollar Pitgober. The major attraction in Dollar is the 500-year-old Castle Campbell, lowland seat of the Duke of Argyll, where Mary, Queen of Scots once lived in the 16th century; the residence was chosen for its proximity to the court in Edinburgh and to Clackmannan Tower, Stirling Castle and Linlithgow Palace. At the foot of Dollar Glen is The Mill Green. Here there is a small museum run by volunteers, which contains a collection of local items, much information about the former Devon Valley Railway, which closed to passengers in 1964. There are various sports facilities, including an 18-hole golf course, a tennis club, a squash club, a bowling club, a cricket club.
The Ochil Hills that overlook Dollar provide opportunities for mountain biking. The nearby River Devon is used seasonally for trout fishing. There are three churches, one Church of Scotland, one Scottish Episcopal Church and Ochil Hills Community Church which meets in the Civic Centre. Dollar is now residential. Attempts were made to mine lead and copper in Dollar Glen from the 18th century and earlier, but these were of no economic significance. Coal mining in the area began around the same time and, until 1973, supplied the Kincardine Power Station, the Longannet Power Station with coal from the Upper Hirst seam. A tiny private non-NCB coal mine operated from the Harviestoun estate from the mid-1970s filling the gap that the closed NCB left, whilst there was still local demand for coal. In common with the other Hillfoots Villages, the textiles industry played an important part in the town's development; the Harviestoun Brewery was established west of Dollar before its move to Alva. The town is now a dormitory community for people who work in Stirling and further afield — e.g. Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Because of the success of its fee-paying school Dollar Academy and its tranquil environment, the town draws young and reasonably well-off families, giving it a different character from the other Hillfoots Villages. The town has one for each world war. In the grounds of the Academy a bronze figure with outstretched hands by George Henry Paulin faces westwards and commemorates the fallen of the First World War; this has names added for Northern Ireland. The dead were from the Academy; the Second World War has a far more modest memorial, in the small public garden on the main road, where the road twists. Both memorials are by local sculptor George Henry Paulin. Dollar is home of the Dollar Glen Football Club. Dollar is twinned with the French town of La Ville-aux-Dames, which lies just outside Tours in the Loire Valley. Possible interpretations are that Dollar is derived from Doilleir, an Irish and Scots Gaelic word meaning dark and gloomy, or from various words in Pictish:'Dol' +'Ar' or Dol + Ar.
Another derivation is from Dolar, ‘haugh place’. John Everett-Heath, in derives it as'Place of the Water Meadow' from the Celtic dôl'water meadow' and ar'place'. A further theory, linked to Castle Campbell's alternative name of Castle Gloom, is that it stems from Scots-French "Doleur", meaning sadness. From 1891 to 1975 the town had its own council, it is now within Clackmannanshire council area. It forms part of the Clackmannanshire East ward which includes Clackmannan, Comely Bank, Dollar & Muckhart. In the 2017 local elections, residents of the ward elected three councillors - one each from the Scottish National Party, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Dollar had a provost from 1891 to 1975; the provosts were: James Beveridge Henderson David Westwood Richard Malcolm John Drysdale M Fisher James Benson Green and Lavinia Malcolm the first and only female Provost Cpt Stewart Fairweather Butchart MC C Allsopp R Waddell J Scott P Walton Alexander McLean Cowan J Crawford Shaw J Hewitt J Muckersie J M Miller H Moss Dr William Young Galloway E M M Breingan According to the Pictish Chronicle, Amlaíb Conung, the first Norse king of Dublin, was killed in a battle fought at Dollar around 874, when Constantine I was the king of Scotland.
Robert Burns visited Craufurd Tait in Dollar in 1787. There he was inspired to write the song "The Banks of Devon" Dollar was the home town of Scottish sinologist James Legge, the translator of The Chinese Classics, who invited Wang Tao to live in Dollar from 1870-1872 where he wrote two travel notes: Wondering in the Rambling Park and Touring the Mountain in Dollar published in Jottings from Carefree Travel, the first travel book about Europe by a Chinese scholar. Wang Tao described the residents of Dollar as "honest, self-sufficient and hard-working" and that "public order is well maintained". Dollar Academy was founded in 1818 with a bequest from a D
James Watt
James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world. While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines, he realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power and cost-effectiveness of steam engines, he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion broadening its use beyond pumping water. Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775; the new firm of Boulton and Watt was highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man.
In his retirement, Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work. He developed the concept of horsepower, the SI unit of power, the watt, was named after him. James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in a seaport on the Firth of Clyde, his father James Watt, was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, served as the town's chief baillie, whilst his mother, Agnes Muirhead, came from a distinguished family and was well educated. Both were strong Covenanters. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was a mathematics teacher and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn. Despite being raised by religious parents, he became a deist. Watt did not attend school regularly, he exhibited great manual dexterity, engineering skills and an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek failed to interest him. He is said to have suffered prolonged bouts of ill-health as a child; when he was eighteen, his mother died and his father's health began to fail. Watt travelled to London and was apprenticed as an instrument maker for a year returned to Scotland, settling in the major commercial city of Glasgow intent on setting up his own instrument-making business.
He made and repaired brass reflecting quadrants, parallel rulers, parts for telescopes, barometers, among other things. Because he had not served at least seven years as an apprentice, the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen blocked his application, despite there being no other mathematical instrument makers in Scotland. Watt was saved from this impasse by the arrival from Jamaica of astronomical instruments bequeathed by Alexander Macfarlane to the University of Glasgow, instruments that required expert attention. Watt was remunerated; these instruments were installed in the Macfarlane Observatory. Subsequently three professors offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university, it was initiated in 1757 and two of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black as well as the famed Adam Smith, became Watt's friends. At first he worked on maintaining and repairing scientific instruments used in the university, helping with demonstrations, expanding the production of quadrants.
In 1759 he formed a partnership with John Craig, an architect and businessman, to manufacture and sell a line of products including musical instruments and toys. This partnership lasted for the next six years, employed up to sixteen workers. Craig died in 1765. One employee, Alex Gardner took over the business, which lasted into the twentieth century. In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood: James Jr. and Margaret. His wife died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he was married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, with whom he had two children: Gregory, who became a geologist and mineralogist, Janet. Ann died in 1832. Between 1777 and 1790 he lived in Birmingham. There is a popular story that Watt was inspired to invent the steam engine by seeing a kettle boiling, the steam forcing the lid to rise and thus showing Watt the power of steam; this story is told in many forms. James Watt of course did not invent the steam engine, as the story implies, but improved the efficiency of the existing Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser.
This is difficult to explain to someone not familiar with concepts of heat and thermal efficiency. It appears that the story of Watt and the kettle was created by Watt's son James Watt Jr. and persists because it is easy for children to understand and remember. In this light it can be seen as akin to the story of Isaac Newton, the falling apple and his discovery of gravity. Although it is dismissed as a myth, like most good stories the story of James Watt and the kettle has a basis in fact. In trying to understand the thermodynamics of heat and steam James Watt carried out many laboratory experiments and his diaries record that in conducting these he used a kettle as a boiler to generate steam. In 1759 Watt's friend, John Robison, called his attention to the use of steam as a source of motive power; the design of the Newcomen engine, in use for 50 years for pumping water from mines, had hardly changed from its first implementation. Wat
Natural Environment Research Council
The Natural Environment Research Council is a British Research Council that supports research and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. NERC began in 1965 when several environmental research organisations were brought under the one umbrella organisation; when most research councils were re-organised in 1994, it had new responsibilities – Earth observation and science-developed archaeology. Collaboration between research councils increased in 2002. Sir Graham Sutton Professor John Krebs, Baron Krebs 1994-1999 Sir John Lawton 1999–2005 Professor Alan Thorpe 2005–2011 Dr Steven Wilson – 2011–2012 Professor Duncan Wingham – from 1 January 2012 The council's head office is at Polaris House in Swindon, alongside the other six Research Councils. NERC's research centres provide leadership to the UK environmental science community and play significant and influential roles in international science collaborations, it supports a number of collaborative centres of excellence and subject-based designated Environmental Data Centres for the storage and distribution of environmental data.
The Natural Environment Research Council delivers independent research, survey and knowledge transfer in the environmental sciences, to advance knowledge of planet Earth as a complex, interacting system. The council's work covers the full range of atmospheric, biological and aquatic sciences, from the deep oceans to the upper atmosphere, from the geographical poles to the equator. NERC's mission is to gather and apply knowledge, create understanding and predict the behaviour of the natural environment and its resources, communicate all aspects of the council's work; the British Meteorological Office is not part of NERC. The NERC Airborne Research Facility collects and processes remotely sensed data for use by the scientific community. Data are collected from one of four Twin Otter research aircraft operated by British Antarctic Survey, processed by a data analysis team at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and archived at the National Earth Observation Data Centre; the NERC ARF provides radiometrically corrected hyperspectral data from the AISA Fenix and Owl instruments.
Conservation biology Conservation ethic Conservation movement David Carson Ecology Ecology movement Environmentalism Environmental movement Environmental protection Habitat conservation List of environmental organisations Natural environment Natural capital Natural resource Renewable resource Royal Research Ship Sustainable development Sustainability Official website British Antarctic Survey British Geological Survey Centre for Ecology and Hydrology National Centre for Atmospheric Science National Centre for Earth Observation NERC Centre for Population Biology National Oceanography Centre Research Councils UK ARF homepage ARSF-DAN Wiki
William Kirkcaldy of Grange
Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange was a Scottish politician and soldier who fought for the Scottish Reformation but ended his career holding Edinburgh castle on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots and was hanged at the conclusion of a long siege. Grange held lands at Hallyards Castle in Fife. William's father, James Kirkcaldy of Grange, was lord high treasurer of Scotland from 1537 to 1543 and a determined opponent of Cardinal Beaton, for whose murder in 1546 William and James were responsible. William was married to Margaret Learmonth, sister of Sir Patrick Learmonth of Dairsie and Provost of St Andrews. A few days before Grange's execution in August 1573, Ninian Cockburn reported a rumour that he had a child with a young woman and had written a letter in code to her. William, with other courtiers, had been a witness to the instrument made at Falkland Palace at the deathbed of James V of Scotland in 1542 which Cardinal Beaton used to attempt to claim the Regency of Scotland. However, William participated in the Cardinal's murder in May 1546, when St Andrews Castle surrendered to the French in July the following year he was sent as a prisoner to Normandy, whence he escaped in 1550.
He was employed in France as a secret agent by the advisers of Edward VI, being known in the cyphers as Corax. Kirkcaldy was in London in December 1553, discussing border issues with the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles; the sentence passed on Kirkcaldy for his share in Beaton's murder was removed in 1556. Returning to Scotland in 1557 he became prominent by killing Ralph Eure the brother of the Governor of Berwick upon Tweed in a duel; as a Protestant he was one of the leaders of the Lords of the Congregation in their struggle with the Regent of Scotland, Mary of Guise. Kirkcaldy fought the French troops in Fife and they destroyed his house at Halyards. In January 1560 he took down part of Tullibody bridge to delay the return to Stirling of French troops commanded by Henri Cleutin. Kirkcaldy opposed Queen Mary's marriage with Lord Darnley, was associated with her half-brother the Earl of Moray at the time of the Chaseabout Raid. For this defiance, he was forced for a short time to seek refuge in England.
Returning to Scotland, he was an accessory to the murder of Rizzio, but he had no share in Darnley's assassination. Kirkcaldy was opposed to Mary's marriage with Bothwell and regarded the proceedings in the Scottish Parliament with dismay, he wrote to the Earl of Bedford, an English diplomat, that Mary did not care if she lost France and Scotland for Bothwell's sake, Mary had said. Elizabeth however disapproved of Kirkcaldy's opinions of a fellow queen as if she were "worse than any common woman." Yet Kirkcaldy was one of the lords who banded themselves together to rescue Mary after her marriage with Bothwell. After the fight at Carberry Hill the queen surrendered herself to Kirkcaldy. Bothwell escaped and Kirkcaldy sailed to Shetland as Lord High Admiral of Scotland in pursuit, he was determined to capture Bothwell and declared to the Earl of Bedford, Governor of Berwick:"Albeit I be na gud seeman, I promes unto your lordschip, gyf I may anes enconter with hym eyther be see or land, he sall eyther carre me with hym, or ellis I sall bryng hym dead or quik to Edinbrucht."
However, they did not meet, his ship, the Lion, ran aground north of Bressay. After Mary escaped from imprisonment at Lochleven Castle, his military command was responsible for her defeat at the Battle of Langside, he seems, however, to have believed that a peaceful settlement with Mary was possible, coming under the influence of William Maitland of Lethington, whom in September 1569 he released by a stratagem from his confinement in Edinburgh, he was soon vehemently suspected by his fellows. After the murder of Regent Moray in January 1570, William Kirkaldy of Grange ranged himself among the friends of the imprisoned queen. Defying Regent Lennox, Grange began to strengthen the fortifications of Edinburgh castle and town, of which he was captain and Provost, now held for Mary, he forcibly released one of his supporters from imprisonment in Edinburgh's tolbooth, a step which led to an altercation with his former friend John Knox, who called him a murderer and throat-cutter. He arrested some leading burgesses on 29 April 1571.
The King's party established their headquarters in Leith. The subsequent period has become known as the "Wars between Leith and Edinburgh." In May Kirkcaldy built fortifications on the Royal Mile and on St Giles Kirk. In October 1571 the town council established itself in Leith, Grange's men fortified Edinburgh by blocking the ends of streets and closes and burning houses on the outskirts of the city, such as Potterrow. The'lang siege' of Edinburgh castle began in mid-October, when Regent Mar brought artillery from Dumbarton and Stirling Castle. Grange received supplies and money from France and the Spanish Netherlands where George Seton, 7th Lord Seton negotiated with the Duke of Alva. John Chisholm, Master of the Scottish Artillery, obtained money and arms from the exiled Bishop of Glasgow and Charles IX of France, he was captured at North Queensferry. Grange established a mint in the castle to coin silver and raised loans by pawning jewellery belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots. On 27 January 1573, William's brother, James Kirkcaldy arrived at Blackness Castle with arms and money from France, but the castle was besieged by Regent Morton, James Kirkcaldy was captured.
Early in 1573, Kirkcaldy refused to come to an agreement with Regent Morton because the terms of peace set out by the "Pac
