As a resident of West Fife, my wanderings often take me into the neighbouring county of Clackmannanshire. Known affectionately as the Wee County, the administrative centre has since 1822 been Alloa, now the biggest town within the boundaries. Industry developed around Alloa's proximity to the River Forth and the area was a brewing powerhouse until well into the 20th century. The smaller settlement of Clackmannan is just a couple of miles along the shore and contains some worthy historical monuments. I had visited the site of Kennet House (pictured below) two weeks previously and had viewed the extant walled garden. This expedition prompted me to piece together a Clackmannan Heritage walk and today I planned to complete the proposed circuit in order to finalise a report for the website.
Clackmannan initially grew as a settlement on the the tidal stretch of the River Black Devon which empties into the Firth of Forth. There are now no visible signs of the old port and the modern town sits over a mile inland. The locals tried to keep their harbour viable by digging out the silt but to no avail. Today the town is bypassed on the way to Alloa but it's certainly worth having a look at the main drag and hiking up to the the tower. I have visited this 14th-century building a few times and it sits atop a small hill overlooking the water. The similar tower house in Alloa can easily be spotted further upstream. The interior of Clackmannan Tower is normally closed to the public due to structural concerns. Official guided tours are organised once a year as part of the Doors Open scheme and I had the good fortune to attend one of those events a few years ago. Today I was merely walking by before heading down the other side of the slope and doubling back towards the town. I've written about the tower and included photographs on other blog posts. The tolbooth stands proudly at the end of Main Street. It is flanked by the Mannan Stone which – for want of a better expression – resembles a giant penis. The experts agree it dates from pre-Christian times but not all is as Pagan as it may seem. The county of Clackmannan takes its name from this stone - but not the entire monolith on display today, merely the rounded, smaller element on top. This is the real Stone of Mannan. The tall upright pillar was only attached in the early part of the 19th century. But it certainly looks more impressive now!
At the turn of the 21st century, the stone was caged by the local council as it was beginning to crumble and in danger of collapse. It was repaired at the staggering cost of £160,000. Qualified masons insist the job could have been done for a fraction of that cost with equal efficiency. Always keep an eye on where your Council Tax is going! Only the belfry tower of the tolbooth remains and it dates from the late 1500s. The Mercat Cross completes the heritage trio and is adorned with the crest of the Bruce family. My next destination was the cycle track which once formed the route of the Dunfermline to Stirling railway, now reopened for passengers at the Stirling end but only as far as Alloa. Tracks do pass through Clackmannan but this line is a mothballed freight connection to the former Longannet power station at Kincardine. There was originally a passenger halt but this closed as far back as 1930 and the station grounds are now built upon. There have been repeated calls to open this link up and offer a service between Alloa and Dunfermline, with possible extensions to Edinburgh and Glasgow. These words continue to fall on deaf ears and I don't see any realistic prospect of the proposal being greenlit any time soon. One stumbling block is the expense required to re-signal the route for passenger traffic and replace the entire track. These are the counter arguments to the cries of "the line is already there". As far as Fife is concerned, a westward railway to Glasgow would be slower (and almost certainly more expensive and infrequent) than the existing express bus route and you have to wonder what the actual take-up would be. I'm a lifelong rail nerd but - beyond initial curiosity - would I really shell out extra cash for a mode of transport that offered me less flexibility and efficiency?
I walked for a quarter mile along the old railway to the viaduct over the Black Devon. The chimney for the old Cherryton Brickworks is a local landmark. This plant closed in 1976 and the remains are engulfed by dense vegetation. I did fight my way through while walking the cycleway a few years ago but decided against such a move today. I planned to mention the chimney in the walk report but couldn't seriously expect participants to stray into semi-jungle. Does anyone actually follow my walking routes? Surprisingly, yes! I received an email from a chap called Royston Goodman who had used my instructions to find his way to Maggie Duncan's Stone - actually just along the road from where I stood right at this moment. Curiously, I would randomly encounter Royston in a few hours time and he will appear in this write-up. I also received feedback from a lady on Instagram who went by the handle of Hiking Bairn. She had posted pics on her own page from some of my suggested walks around the Falkirk and Stirling area. Good to know that my ramblings are read now and again. Back on the trail - I followed a woodland path alongside the water then emerged in open arable farmland. I had a lovely view of the Clackmannan skyline with the tower and church offsetting the image nicely. Sometimes the most memorable panoramas are those which open up unexpectedly. I also noticed a sign pointing to a mill one mile distant. As this would have prevented me from neatly closing the circle, I opted to leave it for another day. My heritage loop was now mapped and personally checked via boots on the ground. I was home before lunchtime and the sun was streaming down. On a whim I jumped back in the car and decided to check out the site of Solsgirth Mine, closed in the early 90s.
Aside from the industrial significance, another reason for visiting this location was to check out my first county tripoint - in this case the place where the counties of Fife, Clackmannan and Kinross converge. The fact the tripoint was formed by the joining of two streams meant it should be easy enough to pinpoint. I've always been fascinated by borders and boundaries and enjoy crossing from one country to another on foot. I've heard about a picnic table in eastern Europe which straddles the corners of Austria, Hungary and Slovakia. I'd love to dine there. There is also a library on the US-Canadian border which has its entrance on the American side but the floorspace extends into Canada. Closer to home, the English town of Todmorden is cut in two by the traditional Yorkshire Lancashire boundary. The town hall was purposely erected across the divide (although nowadays for administrative purposes, the whole town is within the territory of West Yorkshire Council). Today's mission was a little more obscure - although I'm certain Andy Strangeway would heartily approve. A Yorkshireman, Andy details his British geographical quests on his blog. One project was to spend a night at each country tripoint across the UK. Depending on the terrain, Andy's lodgings could be a tent, bivy bag or his car. A selection of his other achievements is visiting all 162 Scottish islands of 40 hectares or above, sleeping at the six extreme points of Great Britain on six consecutive nights, repeating the previous idea for Yorkshire and Lancashire and sleeping at the summits of all English counties. Andy - quite rightfully - describes himself as an adventurer and claims that - to the best of his knowledge - nobody has emulated his feats. No chance of him being wrong there! In fact, I must send him an email and get hold of his book. His website goes on to state he had to put his travels on hold for a few years as he went and got himself elected as a councillor!
I had driven past the Solsgirth Colliery entrance on many occasions without really knowing the history of the site. It was now an area of waste ground after a proposed housing development fell through. I used Google Maps to determine a couple of points where I could squeeze my car off the main road. I had actually started planning this expedition on the first official night of lockdown. Who said staying at home stifled creativity?! Another car was parked across the old gateway into the pit complex and I pulled into a tiny lay-by 100 yards further on. Figuring the tripoint would be hidden away in the woods, I opted to explore the colliery site first. I passed a couple of ransacked huts and portacabins which I reckoned were part of the doomed development. There were no obvious signs (to my eyes) of old mining operations. Anything of any value would have been sold for scrap long ago. But the overgrown roads and piles of rubble provided a heavy post-industrial feel. Old chains and steel ropes were lying around, along with assorted smaller pieces of debris. The site hadn't been completely cleared. At this point I spotted an older chap poking around in the distance. Another urban explorer no doubt. Despite the dereliction, nature was positively thriving here and I startled a deer while climbing one of the green-covered mounds to survey the entire area. Birds were singing and it was as if a wildlife reserve was slowly forming before me. I scrambled back down, turned a corner and bumped into - you've guessed it - Royston Goodman. We hadn't met in person before and initially we chatted generally about the mining industry and exploring the remains. Then he let his name slip and immediately I placed him as the guy who had contacted me about the route to Maggie Duncan's Stone. Royston explained he was piecing together a couple of heritage mining trails in conjunction with Stirling University - a man cut from the same cloth as me, although one far more knowledgeable about coal. He had himself worked at Solsgirth and surrounding pits for many years and had also enjoyed a stint down an African copper mine!
The collieries in my hometown of Lochgelly (and neighbouring Cowdenbeath) had all vanished by the end of the 60s but the area retained an opencast industry and - as a schoolboy - I saw buses picking up local miners bound for the handful of surviving deep mines in the wider region. They all seemed to disappear in the years following the bitter nationwide strike of 84-85. Almost as if the government hunted them down with a vengeance, which they probably did. By the mid-90s only Longannet was still in operation, supplying the adjacent power station with coal. A disastrous underground flood in 2002 put paid to this arrangement and King Coal beat a final retreat. Solsgirth had been one of a few mines linked to Longannet by a sophisticated underground transport belt. Some five miles in length, coal was placed on to the belt at intermediate points and Royston had walked along and worked on the entire system. No wonder he had been headhunted for the heritage project. Our conversation included some technical talk that I just about grasped and we parted ways, vowing to keep in touch. I've since had a few emails from Royston and have also spotted him contributing to the West Fife Woodlands Group. Finding old stones is another of his passions. He suggested I take a look at the remains of Casterbridge Colliery a couple of miles up the road and tipped me off about a handy hole in the fence. Sounded like a great idea, but first I had to track down the tripoint. The obvious method to employ was to find one stream and follow it. The vegetation wasn't too dense and I stood at the meeting of three historic counties. Enough sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees to take a decent picture. I included it in a post on the Woodlands Group about my day's exploring and the tripoint attracted quite a few likes. People find this sort of thing intriguing. Oh - and did I do the one foot in each county stance? What do you think?
Castlebridge - not to be confused with nearby Castlehill - is now mostly empty ground but apparently the outbuildings were left in a state of decay for many years until final demolition. Looks like I missed trick there. You can wander freely around the vast site, which has rail tracks embedded in the ground. A few lampposts still stand and chunks of equipment are dotted here and there. Signage points to nowhere and flights of stairs end abruptly. Traffic rushes by on the busy A985 but you are well screened from view as you explore the apocalyptic-style landscape. Longannet power station is now closed as is the major opencast operation at Kelty. There can't be many people at all who handle coal as part of their working lives nowadays. Protecting our environment is now paramount and cleaner forms of energy are required. That said, you have to wonder if progress is best accomplished by completely abandoning one source of fuel. Nuclear power makes a lot of sense from a generational standpoint but is obviously a political no-go area. Both my grandfathers and their fathers before them were miners, as were the fathers of my grandmothers. Black diamonds stud my very soul and thank heavens future generations will not have to endure the horrendous underground working conditions.