The Plean Country Park Heritage Trail

16 East Plean Playing Field Primary N School This leaflet is intended to help you explore Plean Country Park as part of the Xplore Stirling Heritage Trails. The trail Plean Country Park can be carried out in any order and the directional arrows P provide only a suggested route. Heritage Trail P 1 Cadgers Loan Visit travelinescotland.com to help you plan your 2 Plean journey to, in and around Stirling. House 17 6 Old Plean 7 3 15 4 5 12 9 8 18 1 2 10 11 13 Quarrying of sandstone 14 Welcome to the Before the age of man Plean and the surrounding Plean Country Park area would have been under water and as the water Touchhill Visit walkit.com to help you plan your way around Farm Stirling on foot. receded over time the sand which remained hardened Heritage Trail to form sandstone. Under the soils of Plean Country Remember to follow the Scottish Outdoor Access Plean Park lies part of the Upper Limestone Formation which Glen Road Industrial Code while exploring the Stirling Heritage Trails. Estate was extracted from Blackcraig Quarry in Plean. This Designed by www.artisanoption.co.uk Plean Country Park is situated immediately to the south quarry was one of three in Plean known as Catscraig, of Plean village, some six miles south east of Stirling. Craigbeg and Blackcraig. Blackcraig produced the Plean White Freestone considered to be high Plean Country Park extends to approx. 89 hectares quality, fine-graded white sandstone. It was one of of which 75 are woodland with the remainder being the last quarries to close having been worked from meadows and watercourses. around1841and finally abandoned by 1913. 1 Information Hub 10 South Bing Plean Audio The Main entrance into the Country Park is from 2 Wildlife Ponds 10a South Bing ecology The sandstone produced at Blackcraigs was used Cadgers Loan, a former Drovers route which links the 2a Plean Colliery 11 Food for Thought to build the School and Church Extension at Plean, Country Park with Plean village. The south of the park Look out for the Audio markers 3 Plean House 11a WW1 cooking in bridges on the Plean branch of the mineral railway, 2 is bounded by the Roman Road which was part of along the trail to hear more 4 Gates to the House 12 Woodland of also in the chief post offices at Falkirk and Stirling, a network of roads built by the Romans about 2000 information. 4a Plean House Luckiness Cowane’s Hospital and in Stirling Public Library. It was years ago. This road provided the main thoroughfare kitchen 13 Ice House also used in a number of buildings in Glasgow and between the regal powerhouses of Stirling and Perth. It Edinburgh and the Bass Rock lighthouse in the Firth Each board is numbered, with 5 Stables 14 Glen Road Lodge was the motorway of the day. of Forth. each number corresponding to Scan the QR code 5a Fast cars and House or listen online at This leaflet is one of many produced in partnership with pleanaudio.co.uk chauffeurs an audio guide which you can 15 Fire Ponds Stirling’s communities to help you explore the rich and Plean Country Park was once an area quarried for 6 Laundry sandstone and became a working Victorian estate access on your smart-phone. The audio is 16 Gardener’s Cottage varied heritage of our wonderful city. You’ll find them at 3 7 WW1 Trenches www.stirlingheritagetrails.co.uk landscaped in the early 1800s and later became a indicated by 17 Meadows 8 Reed Beds For led walks in the area see the Stirling Walking Network significant part of the coal and coke production in the this marker 18 Crescent Soakaway 9 Quarry at www.activestirling.org.uk local area. 1| Aerial view by drone of Plean House © Daniel Tetstall 2| Lighthouse on the © Crown Copyright and Database right 2014. Bass Rock www.pleanaudio.co.uk All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey lic. 100020780 www.pleanaudio.co.uk 3| Typical Quarry face 4 6 9 10 13 17 7 8 5 14 Victorian Estate William Simpsons is now a residential care home for and used for smelting in the steel industry. An excellent Today’s Estate Hunters together with several Bees are drawn to the blossom of the fruit trees both men and women and provides respite and day example of beehive style coke ovens can still be seen species of Rhododendron in the park some of which have grown there since 1750 - 1799 In the mid Whilst the layout of the Country care facilities. today to the south west of the park and visible from the and Azaleas. These colourful Victorian times. 1750s Robert Haldane Park today resembles that of the Roman Road. specimens can be found within of Gleneagles purchased 1833 - 1922 Plean Estate was owned by the Trustees of former working Victorian estate You can marvel at the dazzling bejewelled Southern the formal plantings around Plean Estate from the William Simpson Asylum and occupied by a variety of Originally there were two distinct settlements, the old the land use has changed to Hawker dragonflies as they hunt up and down the Plean House. Earl of Dunmore and also tenants including the Plean Colliery Company. village which is situated to the east of Plean House, focus upon the conservation drives and lay their eggs in the ponds in the summer. purchased Airthrey Estate depicted on the OS 1860 Plan, and the colliery village of wildlife and the provision of 1922 - 1929 The Trustees, with the agreement of the These are just a few of the fantastic species to as a means of securing of East Plean.The colliery village was built to house the access for the visiting public to Plean Colliery Company, sold the house and grounds One unwelcome introduction be found on your visit to the park where you can the right to vote in parliament. The estate passed families of the mining community working locally. East enjoy. Little can be seen today of the industrial past to Wallace Thorneycroft who was the mine manager is the purple flowered experience something different with the changing of upon his death in 1767 to his nephew George who Plean was developed from the late 19th Century about unless you know where to look. This leaflet provides a and had lived in the house for a number of years. Rhododendron ponticum which the seasons. accrued a mountain of debt which was cleared by half a mile to the north on the A9. By the late 20th guide to the lost heritage and the audio trail can unlock has become a highly invasive the sale of the estate in 1799. 1929 - 1970 Following the relocation of Wallace Century the two had merged to form Plean village. The further secrets of the past. pest not only in Plean Country Thorneycroft to Devon, Plean Estate was then village of Plean now comprises both Old Plean and Plean. 1820 - 1833 This land was then purchased by Francis The estate is still managed for its flora and fauna such Park but in the countryside as a purchased by his relatives brother and sister Tam and Simpson, the son of a clerk of the Carron Company Mining was dirty dangerous work and in order to as the extensive woodland much of which was planted whole. Jessie Thorneycroft who ran the estate until it was sold who amassed his fortune as a ship’s captain with the improve this the Miners’ Welfare Scheme was introduced in the Victorian era. You can still see 15 in 1970 to the National Coal Board. Shortly afterwards The wildflower meadows are also managed to Honourable East India Company. He commissioned providing baths and other facilities for the workers as exotic mature trees such as Giant 18 vandals set fire to the unoccupied house which has encourage our celebrity species which is the Greater the design of the formal Victorian landscape which many of the houses did not have a bathroom and in fact Redwood and Spanish Chestnut been derelict ever since. Butterfly Orchid, Platanthera included Plean House and Stables together with had no indoor toilet. The miners’ accommodation was along the driveways. These were chlorantha which can be seen other associated buildings, which formed Plean known as ‘Rows.’ introduced during the era of in large numbers in June and Estate. Francis had a tragic life losing his first born Coal Mining the Scottish Plant In 1922 twelve men were killed and seven were injured in July. The lovely vanilla aroma child in infancy, then his wife a year after the birth of As well as sandstone below the ground in Plean there an explosion in the No.4 shaft of the colliery. Shortly after released by these plants in his son William, who suffered poor health and died was also a coal seam which was exploited and led to this in 1931 the No.5 shaft was sunk a mile from shaft the evening attracts the moth at the age of 22. In memory of William a home for the opening of many pits all working the upper seams. No.4 in order to increase efficiency by decreasing the species which pollinate the indigent old men known as the William Simpson As this coal was of poor quality the number of pits distance of haulage. By 1959 the demand for coke was flowers. Asylum was founded in the village of Plean where it reduced and Wallace Thorneycroft switched the focus shrinking and the colliery closed in 1962.

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