The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the East Coast - Various

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a year later at Falkirk, has been quite obscured by the Bruce’s great victory at Bannockburn. One never thinks of Stirling without remembering that near by is the field where was decided, for three centuries, and indeed for all time, the history and fortunes of Scotland. The banks of the Bannock are now peaceful enough, and the people of the village of that name, and of the neighbouring hamlet of St. Ninians, lying still nearer Stirling and the battle-ground, are occupied with nothing more warlike than the weaving of tartans. The slough in which the English chivalry sank, and were overpowered, is now drained and cultivated land. But a fragment of the “Bore Stone,” where Bruce set up his standard, is still preserved; and the “Gillies’ Hill,” behind, commemorates the opportune appearance of the camp-followers of the Scottish army, when they hoisted their blankets on their tent-poles,

      “And like a bannered host afar

      Bore down on England’s wearied war,”

      putting a finish to the rout of Edward II.’s troops.

      Leaving Stirling and Bannockburn and all their memories behind us, we can now embark upon the Forth, and follow its broadening stream towards the open sea. The fat carse-lands are still on either hand, rimmed in on one side by the furrowed flanks of Dunmyatt and the Ochils, and bounded on the other by the Campsie Fells, crowned, far off, by Earl’s Seat; while beyond, on a clear day such as we have bespoken for our readers, the Bens grouped around the sources of the Forth and Teith lift themselves into view, fronted effectively by the towers of Stirling and the Abbey Craig. As we face now east, now west, now north, now south, on our devious way, these objects shift place bewilderingly, and more and more the “foot-hills” of the Ochils come down to take their place and give a bolder character to the foreground scenery of the Forth.

ALLOA PIER.

      ALLOA PIER.

      Very beautiful, at all seasons and in all lights, is this historic range, with its wonderful variety of form and play of shadows. As tales of wild Highland foray and stieve Lowland endurance are mingled in its annals, so the pastoral and mountainous combine in this its southern aspect; and the result is harmony. From the summit of Ben Clench, the highest of the Ochils, and from other coigns of ’vantage, you can gaze down into peaceful, secluded glens, familiar only to the sheep and the curlew, or into busy valleys lined by thriving villages and factory stalks, from which arises the smoke of the bleaching, spinning, and other manufacturing industries that have long had a home in the heart of these hills. Or you can look abroad and take in at one sweeping glance the whole breadth of the country from Glasgow to Dundee—from the Lammermoors and the North Sea to Ben Nevis and the hills of Arran.

      But the greatest of the glens of the Ochils is that followed by the “clear-winding Devon,” over many a rocky scaur and past many a busy mill-wheel, on its way to join the Forth at Cambus. It would take a volume to do justice to the beauties, wild and soft, of the Devon Valley, and to the associations, warlike and peaceful, that have gathered around its noted places; to attempt to describe Crook o’ Devon and Rumbling Bridge, the “Devil’s Mill” and the “Cauldron Linn,” and Dollar and Alva Glens; to collect the memories that cluster about Tillycoultry and Alva, and Menstry and Tullibody; to dwell upon the attractions of its excellent trouting streams; or to peer among the shadows that appropriately shroud the ruins of Castle Campbell—the “Castle of Gloom”—overlooking the “Burn of Sorrow,” harried in revenge against Argyll for the burning of the “Bonnie House o’ Airlie.”

SALMON-FISHING NEAR STIRLING.

      SALMON-FISHING NEAR STIRLING.

      

      Unless one has a few days to spare that cannot well be better spent than in exploring Glen Devon and the nooks of the Ochils, he can only glance at the charming wooded valley and blue inviting heights as he follows the windings of the Forth, past the flat green “inches” of Tullibody and Alloa, under the North British Railway Bridge crossing the river between these two islands, to the busy town of Alloa.

CULROSS, FROM THE PIER. / CULROSS ABBEY.

      CULROSS, FROM THE PIER. / CULROSS ABBEY.

      More than Alloa itself, with its fame for the brewing of ale, and signs of active shipping and manufacturing trade, the eye will be attracted by Alloa Tower and Park, now the seat of the Earl of Mar and Kellie; for here once ruled the old line of the Erskines, Earls of Mar; here Queen Mary paid repeated visits, sailing up the Forth to meet Darnley, under the conduct of Bothwell as High Admiral; and here her son, King James, spent part of his boyhood, under the eye of the Regent Mar and the strict disciplinary rod of George Buchanan.

      Below Alloa the river straightens and widens, taking more and more the character of an estuary. One should not miss noting the scattered houses of the old town of Clackmannan, scrambling up the slope to its church and the ancient tower of the Bruces. Clackmannan is the place which Aytoun’s recluse thought of selecting for rural retirement, because, “though he had often heard of it, he had never heard of anybody who had been there.” It is more out of the world than ever, now that county business has flitted to Alloa. Its visage is not, however, so forlorn as that of Kincardine-on-Forth, the pier of which we now approach; for Kincardine has plainly seen better days, and has little expectation of seeing their return. It was once a busy shipbuilding and shipowning port; and close by was distilled the famous Kilbagie whisky, by which the tinkler in the “Jolly Beggars” swore. Now there is no Kilbagie, and no shipping business to speak of; and Kincardine is a “dead-and-alive” place, and more dead than alive. There are many places like it all along the shores of the Forth—places favoured by special times and special circumstances of trade, which has since drifted or been drawn elsewhere.

      The massive grey ruins of Tulliallan Castle are in the woods close behind Kincardine. This also was once a stronghold of the Bruces—in fact, it is “Bruce Country” all the way along this northern shore of the Forth, until we come to the last constriction of the estuary, over which the great railway bridge is being thrown at Queensferry. The spidery red limbs of this new giant bestriding the sea begin to come in sight after passing Kincardine Ferry and rounding Longannet Point. For now, especially when the broad mudbanks of the foreshore are covered at high water, the river takes a truly spacious expansion; the salt water begins to assert dominion over the fresh, and the line of the southern bank retires to the distance of three or four miles. It is no great loss; for Grangemouth and Bo’ness are little other than ports for the shipment of coal and pig-iron. The Carron Works show like pillars of fire by night and pillars of smoke by day, hiding Falkirk and Camelon and other spots of historic note. Further east the low shore-line is backed by a monotonous ridge that shuts us out from sight of the valley of which Linlithgow, with its loch and royal palace, is the centre; and even the woods of Kinneil, and the knowledge that along this crest, starting on the shore near the old Roman station of Carriden, run the remains of “Grime’s Dyke”—the Wall of Antonine—fail to make the southern side a joy to the eye. There is metal more attractive near at hand, within the sweep of the Bay of Culross.

      Culross—Koo’ross, as the name sounds familiarly to the ears of those who know it—cherishes a fond tradition that Turner the painter, who visited Sir Robert Preston at the Abbey in the beginning of the century, compared its bay with that of Naples, rather to the disadvantage of the latter. Local partiality is doubtless the father of the legend. Yet there are wonderful charms embraced by the curve of coast facing the south and the Firth, betwixt “Dunimarle and Duniquarle,” with Preston Island and its ruined buildings in the string of the arc; the grey and white walls and red roofs of the little royal burgh, following the sinuosity of the shore, or struggling up the wooded slopes; the “corniced” roads and “hanging gardens” behind; crowning the near foreground, the Norman tower of the Abbey Church, the ruins of the ancient monastery, and the stately façade of the mansion of Culross Abbey (the design, it is said, of Inigo Jones); and behind, the forest, moorland, and cultivated tracts, rising towards the wavy green lines, fading into blue in the distance, of the Ochils and of the Cleish and Saline

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