Things to do in Stirlingshire

The Falkirk Wheel is one of the most remarkable pieces of engineering in Britain, a unique rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal at Falkirk in central Scotland that replaced a series of eleven derelict locks with a single structure of extraordinary ingenuity. Built as part of the Millennium Link project to restore Scotland's central belt canal network, the wheel opened in 2002 and has become both a working piece of transport infrastructure and a major visitor attraction in its own right, drawing visitors from across Britain and beyond. The wheel lifts boats twenty-four metres between the two canals in gondolas balanced by the principle of Archimedes: since a floating boat always displaces exactly its own weight of water, the two gondolas in which boats travel are perpetually in counterbalance regardless of the weight of vessels they contain. The energy required to rotate the entire structure is therefore only that needed to overcome friction, making the wheel one of the most energy-efficient boat lifts in the world and a practical demonstration of the elegance available when engineering works with rather than against physical principles. The visual form of the wheel, designed by the engineering company Arup with architects RMJM, gives physical expression to the engineering principle. The great curving arms sweeping upward from the lower canal basin to the aqueduct of the upper canal suggest simultaneously a Celtic double-headed axe, a set of propeller blades and a turning wheel, and the structure's appearance changes dramatically as it rotates through its cycle. Boat trips through the wheel, lifting passengers from the lower canal basin to the upper level and back, allow visitors to experience the rotation from inside the gondola. The canal towpaths at both levels of the wheel provide excellent walking and cycling, and the restored canal network extends the experience through the Central Belt.

Loch Katrine is one of Scotland's most beautiful and romantically celebrated freshwater lochs, lying at the heart of the Trossachs region in what is now Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. The loch stretches for around twelve kilometres through a landscape of wooded hillsides, heather moorland and dramatic mountain views that made it famous long before the national park designation formalised its protection. The loch's romantic reputation was established above all by Sir Walter Scott, who set his narrative poem The Lady of the Lake here in 1810, a work that proved so popular it effectively launched Scottish Highlands tourism as a recognisable industry. Visitors began arriving in substantial numbers to see the scenery that had inspired the poem, and the loch's reputation as a place of exceptional natural beauty has been sustained ever since. The Royal Family visited in 1869 in a trip that further cemented Loch Katrine's status as a destination of distinction. The Trossachs landscape that surrounds Loch Katrine has been called Scotland in miniature, combining forested glens, mountain ridges, lochside paths and ancient oakwood in a landscape that packs the essential character of the Highlands into an area accessible from the central belt. The SS Sir Walter Scott, a Victorian steam-powered passenger vessel still operating on the loch, provides one of Scotland's most charming and historic boat excursions, departing from Trossachs Pier at the eastern end of the loch for regular cruises throughout the visitor season. Cyclists and walkers have exclusive access to the lochside road, which runs along the northern shore of the loch for eleven kilometres through some of the most peaceful and beautiful countryside in the Trossachs. The Katrine Wheel cycle route allows a full circuit of the loch, combining the road with forest tracks, and the walking possibilities in the surrounding hills range from gentle lochside strolls to more demanding ridge walks. Loch Katrine also plays a practical role in the life of the region: since 1859 it has served as the primary water supply for the city of Glasgow, an engineering achievement that dramatically improved public health in what was then one of the world's most densely populated and disease-ridden cities. The Victorian aqueduct system that carried the water southward was a feat of civil engineering that transformed Glasgow's mortality statistics.

Loch Katrine in the Trossachs National Park northwest of Stirling is the most celebrated loch in the Scottish Highlands south of the Highland Boundary Fault, a Highland loch of exceptional scenery famous as the setting of Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake and as the water supply reservoir for Glasgow in a combination of literary heritage and Victorian engineering that has made it one of the most visited natural attractions in the Trossachs. The SS Sir Walter Scott, a restored Victorian steamship that has operated on the loch since 1900, provides one of the finest heritage vessel experiences in Scotland. Loch Katrine provides the water supply for Glasgow through a gravity-fed aqueduct of nearly 50 kilometres constructed between 1856 and 1859 in one of the most important public health engineering achievements of Victorian Scotland, the clean water from the loch replacing the contaminated well water that had contributed to the cholera epidemics that killed thousands of Glasgow residents in the 1830s and 1840s. The quality of the water has been maintained in the loch catchment by preventing agricultural and industrial development since 1856, keeping Loch Katrine exceptionally clean. The cycling on the traffic-free road along the north shore of the loch provides one of the finest accessible cycling routes in the Trossachs, and the combination of the steamer trip and the cycling creates an excellent full day in the loch and forest landscape of the national park.

Rob Roy MacGregor's grave in the churchyard at Balquhidder in the Stirlingshire Highlands is one of the most visited heritage sites in the Scottish Highlands, the last resting place of the famous Highland outlaw, cattle drover, Jacobite supporter and folk hero whose life has been celebrated in novels, films and plays since Sir Walter Scott made him the subject of his 1817 novel Rob Roy and cemented his place in the mythology of Highland Scotland. The grave, with its simple iron-railed enclosure containing several MacGregor family graves, stands in the peaceful churchyard of the ruined old church of Balquhidder in a setting of great beauty above Loch Voil. Rob Roy MacGregor was born in 1671 and died in 1734 after a turbulent life of cattle dealing, money lending, military service with the government and against it, outlawry following the ruin of his business dealings with the Duke of Montrose and the various episodes of adventure and escape that made him a legend in his own lifetime. His transformation from a complicated and sometimes morally ambiguous historical figure into the romantic Highland hero of Scott's novel and subsequent popular culture reflects the process by which Scottish Highland culture was reinterpreted for Romantic sensibilities in the early nineteenth century. The Balquhidder churchyard contains graves from both the original medieval church and the subsequent building, and the ruined walls of the older structure frame the MacGregor graves in a composition of considerable charm. The Glen Voil road providing access to the more remote glens beyond and the walks along the lochside from Balquhidder village provide excellent opportunities to experience the Highland landscape that Rob Roy inhabited.

The Falkirk Wheel in central Scotland is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal, built as the centrepiece of the Millennium Link project to restore Scotland's central belt canal network and opened in 2002. It is one of the most remarkable pieces of engineering in Britain, replacing eleven derelict locks with a single rotating structure of extraordinary ingenuity that has become one of the most visited engineering attractions in Scotland. The engineering principle is elegant: because a floating boat always displaces exactly its own weight of water, the two gondolas in which boats travel are perpetually in counterbalance regardless of how many boats they contain. The energy required to rotate the entire structure is therefore only that needed to overcome friction, making it one of the most energy-efficient boat lifts in the world and a practical demonstration of Archimedes's principle at engineering scale. Boat trips through the wheel from the lower canal basin allow visitors to experience the rotation from inside the gondola, a remarkable and memorable perspective on the engineering. The proximity of the Kelpies sculpture park on the same canal network makes a combined visit an excellent day out in the Falkirk area.

The Kelpies are two enormous steel horse heads rising thirty metres from the Forth and Clyde Canal at the Helix Park near Falkirk, the largest equine sculptures in the world and one of the most spectacular pieces of public art in Scotland. Created by sculptor Andy Scott and completed in 2013, the sculptures were conceived as a monument to the horse-powered heritage of Scotland's heavy industries and the role of working horses in the canals, industries and farms that built modern Scotland. The scale is their most immediately impressive quality. Each Kelpie weighs approximately 300 tonnes, their stainless steel surface panels reflecting the sky and surrounding landscape in constantly changing patterns of light. The choice of the kelpie, the shape-shifting water horse of Scottish folklore, as the mythological framework for sculptures celebrating working horses creates an interesting tension between the dark folkloric tradition and the celebratory industrial heritage narrative. The sculptures mark the eastern entrance to the Helix Park, a large public park providing cycling, walking, water sports and recreation for the communities of the Falkirk area. The canal basin beside the Kelpies provides a visitor centre and access to the canal network, and the combination of the sculptures and the adjacent Falkirk Wheel creates one of the most impressive engineering and public art experiences in Scotland.

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park was established in 2002 as Scotland's first national park, protecting a landscape of lochs, mountains, ancient woodlands and river valleys that stretches from the southern shores of Loch Lomond to the high peaks of the central Highlands. The park covers approximately 1,865 square kilometres and encompasses an extraordinary diversity of landscapes within a relatively compact area, making it one of the most accessible areas of wild country in Britain for the large population of central Scotland that lives within an hour's drive of its boundaries. The Trossachs, a small but dramatically beautiful area of wooded hills and rocky lochs at the park's heart, gave the national park its name and were among the first Scottish landscapes to attract tourism on a significant scale. Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, published in 1810, set its action in the Trossachs around Loch Katrine and sparked an immediate wave of visitors seeking the landscape Scott had described. The visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822, orchestrated by Scott himself, further stimulated interest in Highland scenery and established the pattern of romantic tourism that has continued in various forms to the present day. The park contains 21 munros, mountains over 3,000 feet, as well as numerous lower peaks that provide excellent hill walking for all abilities. Ben Lomond, the most southerly munro in Scotland, rises directly from the eastern shore of Loch Lomond and is one of the most climbed mountains in Scotland, its path from Rowardennan carrying thousands of walkers to its summit each year. The views from the top across the loch and south toward the industrial central belt make clear the park's position on the edge of the Highland Boundary Fault, the geological divide between the Highlands and the Lowlands. Wildlife is abundant throughout the park. Red deer are common on the open hillsides, ospreys fish the lochs and larger rivers in summer, and the rivers and streams support healthy populations of Atlantic salmon and sea trout. The native woodland remnants scattered through the park, particularly the old oakwoods of the Loch Lomond shores, are of ecological importance for the species they support and the sense they give of the pre-agricultural landscape of Scotland.