Ian Scott: Heading west on a historical walk from Dennyloanhead to Banknock

The first is Dennyloanhead which stands where the ‘loan’ south from Denny meets the main road.

The church here opened in 1743 as the earliest local congregation of the Erskine breakaway from the Church of Scotland.

It was reconstructed in 1815 and is now a private house.

The Railway Inn is a reminder that the villages were once linked by the Bonnybridge-Kilsyth railway built to carry coal from the local pits.

I have fond memories of our bus stopping here in 1957 on our way back from Hampden Park after Falkirk’s Saturday cup final when our fathers and uncles needed a refill!

In the late 1970s over 250 acres of land south of the main road were given over to large-scale whisky bonds as part of the Diageo Company.

Longcroft is the next settlement with its War Memorial, unveiled by the Duke of Montrose in June 1921, bearing the names of an astonishing 87 men who died in the Great War.

Among the World War II names are the brothers Ian and Malcolm Maclachlan, leading members of the celebrated Allandale Pipers who fell at El Alamein.

Haggs is named after the former peat ‘haggs’ in the area and the Parish Church was designed in 1840 by Glasgow architect David Rhind.

Finally we have the village of Banknock which includes Bankier, an early name which refers to a prehistoric earthwork.

Bankier was once home to a famous distillery which opened in 1828 near Wyndford.

A description in the late 1800s lists two large maltings ‘lighted by no less than twenty-four windows’, a huge barley store with a 36-foot square kiln and its own gas manufacturing plant.

Over 200,000 gallons of whisky were produced each year, described as ‘a thoroughly wholesome beverage’.

It survived until the 1920s when it became a bonded warehouse which closed in the 1960s.

More important to 19th century Banknock were the local coal mines which provided most of the income and employment.

From here coal was shipped along the canals to Edinburgh and Glasgow and providing employment for three steam engines and 90 workers.

The coal master was William Wilson.

One account says he was ‘well known as a liberal patron and intelligent connoisseur of the arts’ and in his collection were works by Turner, Millais and Lanseer!

By 1900 there were over 200 men employed in the Banknock pits, many of them from Ireland who used the school as a chapel for the best part of 50 years.

They had to wait until 1974 before they had their own Catholic Church, St Lukes, but by then the jobs that had drawn them here were long gone.

Attempts were made to provide alternative employment and one venture was the Cannerton Brickworks which opened in 1932 using pit waste to produce building bricks.

In the 1960s it employed nearly 100 workers but closed in 1982.

Of course we also have Glenskirlie “Castle” but that’s another story!