Looking back with Ian Scott: Walking the historic route of Falkirk's electric trams (part two)

Larbert Cross is still an important junction which once had an inn on each corner - the White Hart where the Commercial stands, the Red Lion (now the Tea House), the Eagle Inn in front of the church and the Wheat Sheaf with a carved lion which used to be painted red.

Leaving the cross and heading east we pass the former nurses’ home on the left and the primary school (1891) on the right. The Baptist Church is on the site of the original village school. Across the road is Foundry Loan once the gateway to Larbert’s iron industry where hundreds toiled in Dobbie-Forbes, Jones and Campbell and Taylor’s. One reason for the location of the iron works was the arrival of the railway in 1848. Larbert became a major junction and one observer described the village as the ‘Constantinople of the Scottish Railways’. The present Station Hotel with its Tudor style frontage opened around 1890.

A bit further on and we reach the point where Larbert ends and Stenhousemuir begins. On the right stands the West Church opened in 1901 for the new United Free Church and since 1929 part of the Church of Scotland. Since the recent creation of the Tryst Parish Church it stands empty. The Dobbie Hall (1901) designed by Alexander Black was the gift of iron master Robert Dobbie. In front is the impressive War Memorial.

We follow the old tram route to the right along the Main Street towards the Plough Hotel formerly owned by Sir Michael Bruce of Stenhouse and still going strong after 150 years. It was the port of call for us ‘bona fide’ travellers looking for a pint on a Sunday in days of yore! Not far away was Stenhousemuir’s famous picture house, the Palace. Just beyond the Plough we pass quickly through the new shopping centre and reaching Gilmour’s Bar (1888) now called Talk o the Toon on the corner of Tryst Road. Take a left here past the old Co-op Building and a right onto today’s main drag. The B and M store across the road stands where McCowan’s sweetie works once turned out Coo Candy by the ton and beyond it the Tryst ground, home of the greatest cattle fairs in Europe for over a century until 1900.

Back to the walk and Larbert East Church (1900), now the home of the new Tryst congregation, is on our right and, further round, is the site of the High School opened in 1886 as Larbert Central. It is now covered in flats. The area around here is called ‘Goshen’ after the biblical land of plenty presumably because wealthy folk from Carron Company had their houses here. Stenhouse Road winds around the huge reservoirs completed in 1775 which once powered the works. Today the area is a nature reserve where one can see wild creatures including the two-legged variety!

Not far away is what remains of the mighty ironworks and the end of this second leg of our walk. Next week I’ll head up the hill back to Falkirk but meantime the ‘Soo Hoose’ beckons.

The start of Ian Scott’s circular walk on the tram route can be found here

Part three can be found here