The Last 2000 Years

CUTTING right through the centre of that narrow waist of land that divides the North Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and the Highlands from the Lowlands, the Kelvin Valley has often been at the crossroads of history. The Romans were the first to realise the Kelvin Valley’s strategic importance when they built the northern frontier of their empire along its southern slopes. During the dark ages the area was on the fiercely contested frontiers of the kingdoms that were to form Scotland; the Scots and Picts to the north, the Britons and the Angles to the south.

Medieval Times saw castles built and battles fought. The Civil Wars of Cromwell’s time witnessed the major battle of Kilsyth in 1646 between the Covenanters and the Royalists. When peace finally came after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the valley became a great thoroughfare.

A new turnpike road, the Forth & Clyde Canal and new railways all connected the Kelvin Valley to the wider world. Industry took full advantage of these new connections. The Kelvin Valley became a great industrial centre, first for weaving then for the mining industry. Following the despair of pit and industry closures in the 1960’s, the valley has been reinventing itself again, rising from industrial dereliction to a green and welcoming place for locals and visitors alike.

The Romans

The Romans were the first to make a major mark on the local landscape with the construction of the impressive Antonine Wall. One of the best sections of the Wall dominates the southern side of the Kelvin Valley, giving the Romans commanding views over any potential attacking tribesmen. When Antoninus Pius became the new Roman emperor in AD 138 he decided to move the empire’s frontier further north from Hadrian’s Wall to the Forth & Clyde valley.

After defeating the north Britons in AD 142, the legionaries built a 60km (37mile) wall from Bo’ness on the Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, the narrowest point of Britain. Built of turf on a stone base, the rampart was nearly 4.5m wide at the base and may have reached over 3m high, possibly with a timber palisade on top. The wall had a 12m wide, 3m or more deep ditch to the front, a military way to the rear, and a series of at least sixteen forts together with fortlets.

The forts themselves were impressive structures each with a headquarters building, commander’s house, barracks, stores and bathhouse. Life on the Wall must have been a bit cold for the garrison that included soldiers from the Rhineland and archers from Syria. But they were able to shrug off the winter blues in their heated bathhouses, enjoy a healthy diet and worship at their altars as well as dealing with the local citizenry. For a reason that is unclear, the Romans abandoned the Antonine Wall in the years following AD 158 retreating back to Hadrian’s Wall although the Antonine Wall was periodically reoccupied.    

The Romans built forts along the Wall at Westerwood, Croy Hill and Bar Hill. The best preserved of these is at Bar Hill where the headquarters building foundations and the bathhouse are well displayed by Historic Scotland. The Wall itself has virtually all disappeared above ground but the defensive ditch is still virtually continuous throughout the area with particularly fine stretches east of Dullatur, over Croy Hill and over Bar Hill. Almost the whole of this length can be walked using local footpaths and farm tracks and there are good views from many parts, in particular from Croy Hill and Bar Hill.

Historic Scotland are leading a bid for World Heritage Site status for the whole of the Antonine Wall. In 2007, the UK government submitted an application to UNESCO for the Antonine Wall to be made a World Heritage Site; the decision will be made in July 2008.

The proposal includes the whole of the Wall whether in towns or the countryside. The proposed World Heritage Site is surrounded , in the countryside, by buffer zones. The proposal is supported by Historic Scotland and by five local authorities along the line of the Antonine Wall, including North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire Councils. World Heritage Site

Medieval times

Following the centuries of turbulent but unrecorded Dark Ages, by the 1200’s Norman families were building strongholds in the area. These were motte and bailey forts with a timber built castle standing on an artificial mound and a larger defended area called a bailey. One of these was built at Balcastle between Queenzieburn and Kilsyth and the other between Banton and Kilsyth. All that remains are the earthworks, but in the Carron Valley on the other side of the Kilsyth Hills a replica motte and bailey is being built by the Clanranald Trust.

Civil Wars

A couple of centuries later these were superseded by stronger stone built castles, one at Colzium and the other north of Kilsyth near Allanfauld. Today just a few remnants of masonry remain. The area was the scene of a major battle in 1645 between the Royalists under Montrose and the Covenanters under Baillie, around the area now occupied by Banton Loch. Local names such as Cavalry Park, Baggage Knowe, Bullet Knowes and Slaughter Howe commemorate the event. The bloody battle was won by the Royalists but they in turn were defeated by Cromwell’s forces in 1650, who blew up Kilsyth Castle in the process.

The Age of Reason - canals, and the Industrial revolution

More peaceful times led to the construction of grand country houses set in landscaped estates at Colzium, Auchinvole and Nethercroy. Colzium House and Park is now a popular public attraction.  Construction of the Forth & Clyde Canal was one of the great engineering achievements of the late 1700’s and kick started the industrial revolution in the Kelvin Valley. Started at Grangemouth on the Forth in 1768 the canal was navigable as far as Kilsyth in 1773 and the Clyde in 1790. The Kelvin Valley was now connected to the wider world.

Wyndford Lock near Banknock is the eastern end of the summit reach and was a stagecoach terminus with a hotel, stables and lock keeper’s cottage. In the early 1800’s stagecoaches took canal passengers on to Stirling, Crieff and Perth. Craigmarloch Basin was the destination of the ‘Gipsy Queen’ and other ‘Queen’ steamers in the early 1900’s and had a restaurant and putting green, with the Dullatur road carried over the canal by a timber bascule lifting bridge. The main canal water supply enters the canal at Craigmarloch. The canal feeder lade is supplied by Banton Loch, Scotland’s biggest dam when completed in 1773, and an extensive system of burns, weirs and lades including Birkenburn Reservoir high in the Kilsyth Hills. The old stable for canal horses can be seen by the side of the lade.

The Auchinstarry area was the loading point for ironstone from the Nethercroy Mines and coal from the Beugh Pit at Croy and whinstone from Auchinstarry Quarry. It was also the embarkation point for Kilsyth and the town of Kilsyth in Canada is so called because this is where the emigrants last touched land in Scotland. Twechar was another mine loading area and the canal had nearly two centuries of hard labour, transporting timber, coal, grain, lime and passengers. It was used by Para Handy style Clyde puffers which were built on the canal, and the herring fleet passing from the North Sea to the Atlantic. Closure of the canal came in 1963. But it was reopened as part of the Millennium Link in 2001 and is now a popular leisure attraction for boaters, walkers, cyclists and anglers.

Agriculture was the way most people made their living right up to the last couple of hundred years. Mostly this was subsistence farming for cereals and livestock but in the 1700’s food production started to take off in order to feed the growing towns. The first potatoes grown as a field crop in Scotland were grown near Kilsyth in 1729. Black cattle were driven along the old drove road above High Banton from the Highlands to the Falkirk Tryst. By the late 1700’s all the ground except the hilltops had been enclosed. Intensive farming spread up the hillsides and the remains of many old farmsteads and runrigs can be seen today. With an abundance of both waterpower and coal, every community had it’s mill. There are grain mills at Kilsyth, Craigmarloch and Auchincloch, a weaving mill at Banton, Flax & Grain Mills in Croy, spade forge at Drumglass and a sickle mill in High Banton. Most of these served agriculture, as did the local limekilns and smithies.

Market town and the age of rail

As scattered small communities grew into villages, Kilsyth grew into a small town based on the strength of the hand loom weaving industry. In 1796 out of a total working population of nearly one thousand, nearly seven hundred were working in the textile industry. The weavers fell on hard times in the early 1800’s and were prominent in the Reform Bill Campaign of 1832, as were the miners. All this increased activity required transport. A new turnpike road was built through the valley, now the A803, giving stagecoach connections to Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1758. The new Forth and Clyde Canal was a major boost. In 1842 the Edinburgh & Glasgow railway was opened with stations at Croy and Dullatur. The Kelvin Valley railway connecting Bonnybridge, Kilsyth and Glasgow was opened in 1888 with stations at Colzium and Kilsyth. The valley was now well and truly connected, allowing industry to thrive.

Making a living - Mining & Quarrying 

In the 1800’s mining and quarrying took over as the main ways to earn a living in the Kelvin Valley. Rich coal seems like the Kilsyth Coking Coal in the carboniferous bedrock along with hard whinstone from the dolerite sill were massive sources of wealth. But it was ironstone that paved the way. The Forth & Clyde Canal was constructed just fifteen years after the famous Carron ironworks opened which heralded Scotland’s industrial revolution. The Banton Ironstone field was soon being exploited, with miners and their wives and children digging out the precious ore in terrible conditions. They crouched, lay, dug and hauled ore in wet seams barely thick enough for a man to crawl through. The ore was heaped up and burnt in great smoking piles on the surface before being hauled on one of Scotland’s first horse drawn railways down to the canal at Kelvinhead. Coal soon followed and eventually around five thousand local men were working below the surface in old style stoop & room mines and more modern longwall total extraction pits, whilst women and boys sorted out the coal at the surface.

Pits grew bigger and deeper until virtually the whole valley became undermined by workings in the many rich seams. Safety measures were primitive at best, injuries and deaths were common, and there were bigger disasters including Dumbreck in 1938 when nine men died in an underground fire. Above ground, smoking coal and ironstone bings and the chimneys of coke and tar ovens polluted the air. Quarrying for local sandstone for building and limestone for the lime kilns had gone on for centuries.

The local outcrops of hard dolerite proved invaluable for kerbs and setts to make the roads of Scotland’s rapidly growing towns. Soon huge quantities were being quarried and transported by canal and rail to Glasgow and beyond.  For a hundred and fifty years the Kelvin Valley was a major industrial area.

The passing of industry

The 1960’s saw a wave of closures. The last big pits at Dumbreck, Dullatur, Gartshore, Grayshill and Twechar closed with the loss of 2,500 jobs. Along with the pits went the coke ovens and other industries that depended on coal. The Forth & Clyde Canal and the Kelvin Valley Railway also closed. An air of dereliction and unemployment hung over the valley.

But the fightback started rapidly. Dumbreck’s pit bings, “The Dumbreck Alps” were landscaped and planted with trees. Auchinstarry Quarry was turned into a park and popular climbing wall. Old railway lines and mine tracks were converted into footpaths and cycle ways. Community woodlands were planted. Local volunteers brought public cruises back to the canal. Renewal continues in the twenty first century. The canal has been re-opened as part of the Millennium Link with a fine new marina and hotel at Auchinstarry. Dumbreck Pit has been turned into a local wildlife site. Mining and quarrying scars around Croy are being softened by the new Community woodland.

More old routes are being taken into the local path network and Kilsyth is being proposed as a “Walkers Are Welcome” town. North Lanarkshire Council’s Kelvin Valley Action Plan is also assisting regeneration and the Clanranald Trust are constructing a replica Motte and Bailey in the Carron Valley. Historic Scotland cares for several sections of the Antonine Wall in the area: Garnhall at Castlecary, Tollpark, Dullatur, Croy Hill and Barr Hill, with each section sign posted and interpretive panels providing information about the sites themselves. The whole of the Wall is being proposed as a World Heritage site.

The Kilsyth and Villages Community Forum set up a ‘daughter’ organisation in 2005 called the Friends of the Kelvin Valley Park. This was instrumental in establishing the Kelvin Valley Group which brings together local authorities, public agencies and local voluntary groups active in the valley. The group have now won Euro funds for regeneration in the Kelvin Valley. Renewal continues to transform the Kelvin Valley into a green and pleasant place to live, work and play.

 Renewal & Growth

The Clanranald Trust is a charitable organisation that aims to raise awareness of Scottish history and culture at home and abroad through education and entertainment. Apart from filmwork, gala day band/ dance/ combat performances and corporate entertainment the Clan makes around 300 school visits a year, providing interactive sessions of all historical periods to all school groups. The Clan is constructing a replica 12th century medieval motte and bailey fort in the Carron Valley Forest which will be animated to serve as the primary education facility as well as a visitor attraction.


WANT TO KNOW MORE?
www.paperclip.org.uk./kilsythweb/history/kilsyth_scotland_history1.htm

Publications David J Breeze: The Antonine Wall (Edinburgh 2006) David J Breeze: Edge of Empire, Rome’s Scottish Frontier. the Antonine Wall (Edinburgh 2008)
Paul Carter: The Forth & Clyde Canal Guidebook (2001)
James Hunt: Mining History around Croy Hill
James Hutchison: Weavers, Miners and the Open Book (1986)
Croy Historical Society
E-mail: mail@croyhistorical.org.uk
 Web site: www.croyhistorical.org.uk
Meet Tuesdays & Wednesdays 11.30 – 14.30 & 19.30 – 21.30, Other times by appointment.
Heritage Room, Croy Miner’s Welfare & Community Centre, Nethercroy Road, Croy, G65.
Well equipped research room for the study of local & family history, reference library, large photographic collection, old map collection, artefact display, databases, census microfilms & fiche, Power Point presentations, talks, exhibitions.
Cumbernauld Historical Society
Contacts: Mrs E. Crawford, Lenzie, 0141 775 0284 Mr N. McCord, Cumbernauld, 01236 722940
Winter evening talks, summer day outings and publications. Kilsyth Library Web site: www.libraries@northlan.gov.uk
 Burngreen, Kilsyth, Phone: 01236 823147 Open Monday to Saturday. Lending and reference library with local historical collection, public access, open learning lessons and historical enquiries.
KilsythCommunityCouncil Web site: www.kilsyth.org.uk
Contacts: Mrs M. McMillan, Kilsyth, 01236 823167 Source of local information including history.
NorthLanarkshireCouncilArchives E-mail: museums@northlan.gov.uk
Phone: 01236 638980, 10 Kelvin Road, Cumbernauld, G67 2BA Open Mon till Friday. Archives, miscellaneous collections, search room, external enquiries, reprographics  

WilliamPatrickMemorialLibrary
Website: www.library@eastdunbarton.gov.uk
 E-mail: library@eastdunbarton.gov.uk
 Phone: 0141 775 4541 2/4 West High Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1AD Combined information and archives covering wide range of local and family history, reference library and local history publishers. Clanranald Trust for Scotland Address: 27 High Street, Kincardine, Alloa, FK10 4RJ E-mail: info@clanranald.org.uk
 Web-site: www.clanranald.org.uk
 Tel & Fax: 01259 731010
Forth&Clyde Canal Society Secretary: Alison Payne, 01236 720134 Cruises: Tommy Lawton, 0141 772 1620
Website: www.forthandclyde.org.uk
 HistoricScotland Web site: www.historic-scotland.gov.uk
 Address: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH

Acknowledgements We are most grateful to Historic Scotland and to North Lanarkshire Council for funding this leaflet
Our thanks to Croy Historical Society for help with research and logistical support.
Thanks for illustrations and map to Shearer Mapping Services, Antonine Walkway Trust, Croy Historical Society, Clanranald Trust, North Lanarkshire Rangers and The Forth & Clyde Canal Society. Friends of the Kelvin Valley Park This leaflet is published by Friends of the Kelvin Valley Park, a voluntary organisation dedicated to environmental improvements and public enjoyment of the Kelvin Valley. For more information please contact us on 01236 822437 or see our website: www.kelvinvalleypark.info
See also: KELVIN VALLEY PARK PATH NETWORK leaflet In the Kelvin Valley Park area (see map)