We have had an enquiry about the route of the 'drove road' from Stirling, via Fallin to Edinburgh from the Fallin Community Council.
A few things to be clear about first. Fallin was really just a farm or two until quite recent times - its growth as a pit village was long after the period when cattle droving came to an end. So, there was no 'road through the village'.
Secondly,do not assume that all roads in Scotland before the railways were drove roads! Droves might use almost any road (they would try to avoid tolls and needed to have pasture for their stock along the way) but droves might only have been a small part of the traffic, even on some roads that they did use.
The standard book is A R B Haldane, The Drove Roads of Scotland, and there are many editions; get a copy in the library. As I expected, the main map suggests that the major route, from Stiring southwards, was via Larbert and Falkirk, rather than via Fallin. Major routes tended to avoid the carse lands, where there were few stones to make the road surface and where mud was a major problem. So, the main route the droves and the other traffic followed was on the higher ground.
But roads certainly went from Stirling, via Fallin to Airth etc. The best way to find their routes (at least from the seventeenth century onward) is to look at the maps. Of course, old maps were not as precise as modern ones, they were not usually route maps at all. But themaps are easily found online via the website of the National Library of Scotland and (always a big bonus) access is FREE!
So, go to http://maps.nls.uk/counties/index.html and choose 'Stirlingshire'; the earliest ones do not show roads at all. But, as you move forward, you can form a picture. The road will, more or less follow the present one but not in every detail.
for more modern, Ordnance Survey maps go to http://maps.nls.uk/os/index.html; the maps at six inches to the mile will be adequate for most purposes but they go up to 25 inches to the mile.
It would also be worth visiting Stirling Council Archives who have some estate maps of the area and will help you to find what you need and help you to understand what you are seeing.
It is always worth thinking about the bridges, as well as the roads. There was certainly a bridge over the Bannock Burn at Millhall in the seventeenth century. And somewhere in the vicinity of Fallin was Bennie's Bridge - I would love to know exactly where that was!
If you are interested in roads in general, you could read John G Harrison,2005, ‘Improving the roads and bridges of the Stirling area c 1660-1706’ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland vol. 135, pp. 287-307.
You should find a copy of that in Stirling Central Library Reference Section, though that is a technical historical research paper.
Do let us know how you get on via the Comments below this post and if you still have questions, do get in touch again.
Finally, if anyone has done any actual research on the carseland routes east from Stirling, do let us know!
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