Other 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 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.