Bannock Burn
Encyclopedia
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
(burn is Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
for stream) which rises in the Touch Hills to the south-west of Stirling
Stirling
Stirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
in central Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The Bannock flows eastward and enters the River Forth
River Forth
The River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...
to the east of Stirling
Stirling
Stirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...
, close to the site of the Battle of Bannockburn
Battle of Bannockburn
The Battle of Bannockburn was a significant Scottish victory in the Wars of Scottish Independence...
(1314). A nearby town, nowadays a suburb of Stirling, is accordingly called Bannockburn
Bannockburn
Bannockburn is a village immediately south of the city of Stirling in Scotland. It is named after the Bannock Burn, a burn running through the village before flowing into the River Forth.-History:...
.
The Battle of Sauchieburn (1488) was also fought close to the Bannock Burn.
The upper part of the valley of the Bannock Burn appears to have been inhabited in the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
. Several dun
Dun
Dun is now used both as a generic term for a fort and also for a specific variety of Atlantic roundhouse...
s are to be found in the Graigend and Murrayshall area and a fort on Lewis Hill. The Dun at Murrayshall (NS774908) was partly excavated in 1967. A few minor artifacts were found.
In the upper part of the Bannock valley there is a reservoir at North Third, which supplies water to the petrochemical complex at Grangemouth
Grangemouth
Grangemouth is a town and former burgh in the council area of Falkirk, Scotland. The town lies in the Forth Valley, on the banks of the Firth of Forth, east of Falkirk, west of Bo'ness and south-east of Stirling. Grangemouth had a resident population of 17,906 according to the 2001...
.
Limestone working
Just below the reservoir at North Third, limestoneLimestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
was formerly mined, being converted to calcium oxide (quicklime) in lime kilns, the remains of which can be seen today, and then to calcium hydroxide
Calcium hydroxide
Calcium hydroxide, traditionally called slaked lime, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca2. It is a colourless crystal or white powder and is obtained when calcium oxide is mixed, or "slaked" with water. It has many names including hydrated lime, builders lime, slack lime, cal, or...
in slaking pits. This was used for agricultural purposes, in reducing the acidity of the soil in the area. The limestone was first worked at the Touchadam Quarry, and the adjacent Craigend Lime Works, where there were several separate banks of lime kilns, and at least four adit mines, beneath the quartz-dolerite of the Stirling Sill
Stirling Sill
The Stirling Sill is an outcropping of a large quartz-dolerite intrusion or sill that underlies a large part of central Scotland, and may be contiguous at great depth. The sill is of very late Carboniferous age or more probably Permian, as it penetrates the coal measures, often in bedding planes...
. Later operations moved to the Murrayshall Lime Works (also seemingly known as Murray's Hole) in Gillies Hill, above the north bank of the Bannock Burn, and later moved to the opposite side of Gillies Hill, near Cambusbarron
Cambusbarron
Cambusbarron is a village in Stirling, Scotland. In the 2001 census, it had a population of 3,224. There is evidence of settlement at the site since the Bronze Age, and several forts dating from the Iron Age have been found near the village...
. At least two entrances to the mines were still accessible when last inspected by the author, however these were in very dangerous condition and should on no account be entered. Lime kilns can be seen at all three sites. The nearby quarries of relatively modern origin are in the quartz-dolerite
Quartz-dolerite
An intrusive rock, similar to dolerite, but with an excess of quartz. Dolerite is similar in composition to basalt, which is eruptive , and gabbro, which is plutonic. The differing crystal sizes are due to the different rate of cooling, basalt cools quickly and has a very fine structure, while...
of the Stirling Sill, which lies above the Murrayshall Limestone, and have no connection with the lime workings. These quarries, which in the 1970s were producing substantial quantities of crushed dolerite for use as roadstone, have also now closed, and the Murrayshall Quarry site is occupied by a concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
plant.
The Touchadam Smithy, a blacksmiths, was located between the Craigend and Murrayshall sites, and doubtless was involved in providing sharp tools for the miners.
Mills
Further down, the power of the burn was harnessed in a series of mills, all the way to Bannockburn, after which the burn descends to the level of the carse lands where no more gravitational energy could be extracted. Many of the mill buildings still exist, but the water wheels have gone. These were mainly of the overshot type. The highest mill was the Park Farm and Mill, and of approximately four cottages in a row, two were still occupied in 1957, and one until the early 1960s. Unfortunately they have now been demolished. The Cultenhove Flour Mill and Chartershall Corn Mill were fed by a reservoir, now the Cultenhove Fishery, fed by the Sauchie Burn, which joins the Bannock Burn on its south bank just above Chartershall, where a dam, rebuilt due to the construction of the M90 motorway, via a lade, supplied a number of both wool and corn mills downstream of Whins of Milton, as far as Bannockburn. A further complication is that some of the water in the Cultenhove Reservoir may have been diverted from the Auchenbowie Burn (which normally flows to the River CarronRiver Carron (Forth)
The River Carron is a river in central Scotland. This river has given its name to towns in Falkirk, a variety of regional features, a type of cannon, a line of bathtubs, two warships and an island in the Southern Hemisphere.-River Carron:The river rises in the Campsie Fells before flowing into...
at Denny), or its tributary, the Loch Coulter Burn, and so may have passed through the early turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
at Milnholm. It is likely that much of the water arriving at Bannockburn had been used in approximately six mills on its journey downstream.
One of the mills in the section downstream of Whins of Milton was Beaton's Mill, where James III of Scotland
James III of Scotland
James III was King of Scots from 1460 to 1488. James was an unpopular and ineffective monarch owing to an unwillingness to administer justice fairly, a policy of pursuing alliance with the Kingdom of England, and a disastrous relationship with nearly all his extended family.His reputation as the...
was murdered on 11 June 1488, following the Battle of Sauchieburn
Battle of Sauchieburn
The Battle of Sauchieburn was fought on June 11, 1488, at the side of Sauchie Burn, a stream about two miles south of Stirling, Scotland. The battle was fought between as many as 30,000 troops of King James III of Scotland and some 18,000 troops raised by a group of dissident Scottish nobles...
, itself fought near the south bank of the Bannock Burn.
Colliery
There was a colliery on the south bank of the Bannock Burn, at Pirnhall, just outside Whins of Milton, which marked the western extremity of the Stirling Coalfield, a part of the Central Scotland Coalfield. However the site has been a builder's yard (Ogilvies) since the mid 1960s. The bank of the burn at this point is basically mine waste, and contains many fossils of the several types of giant ferns which eventually formed the coal.Nowadays there is little sign of either the industries (lime and mills) or the battles which were historically significant, and the banks of the Bannock Burn, for most of its length, are quiet and peaceful. The countryside is mainly agricultural. A number of footpaths exist, and invite exploration.