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Ochil Hills

Devonian volcanismHills of FifeHills of the Scottish Midland ValleyMountain ranges of ScotlandMountains and hills of Clackmannanshire
Mountains and hills of Perth and KinrossMountains and hills of Stirling (council area)Pages including recorded pronunciationsVolcanism of Scotland
Ochil Hills
Ochil Hills

The Ochil Hills ( ; Scottish Gaelic: Monadh Ochail) is a range of hills in Scotland north of the Forth valley bordered by the cities of Stirling, Perth and the towns of Alloa, Kinross, and Auchterarder . The only major roads crossing the hills pass through Glen Devon/Glen Eagles and Glenfarg, the latter now largely replaced except for local traffic by the M90 Edinburgh-Perth motorway cutting through the eastern foothills. The hills are part of a Devonian lava extrusion whose appearance today is largely due to the Ochil Fault which results in the southern face of the hills forming an escarpment. The plateau is undulating with no prominent peak, the highest point being Ben Cleuch at 721 m (2,365 ft). The south-flowing burns have cut deep ravines including Dollar Glen, Silver Glen and Alva Glen, often only passable with the aid of wooden walkways. The extent of the Ochils is not well-defined but by some definitions continues to include the hills of north Fife.Historically, the hills, combined with the town's site at the lowest bridging-point on the River Forth, led to Stirling's importance as a main gateway to the Highlands. They also acted as a boundary with Fife. Castle Campbell was built at the head of Dollar Glen in the late 15th century (an earlier castle on the site had been called "Castle Gloom") mainly as a very visible symbol of the Campbell domination of the area. Sheriffmuir, the site of the 1715 battle of the Jacobite rising, is on the northern slopes of the hills. In the early Industrial Revolution, several mill towns such as Tillicoultry, Alva and Menstrie (the Hillfoots Villages) grew up in the shadow of the Ochils to tap the water power. Some of the mills are open today as museums. Blairdenon Hill was the site of one of the Beacons of Dissent during the G8 protests in July 2005.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Ochil Hills (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 56.228611111111 ° E -3.6669444444444 °
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Address

A823
FK14 7JZ
Scotland, United Kingdom
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Ochil Hills
Ochil Hills
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Nearby Places

Glendevon Castle

Glendevon Castle is a collection of conjoined structures dating from the 15th century. The property is now (2022) semi-derelict. It lies on a private road in a wooded area north of the A823 between Glendevon Village and Gleneagles. It is not visible from the main road. The oldest section is a Z-plan structure dating from the early 15th century. It stands on high ground, and before the planting of the surrounding trees, it held a wide view over the surrounding valley. From around 1650 it had diagonally opposed square towers to both south-west and north-east, but only the south-west tower is intact at its four-storey height, with the remainder being reduced. A smaller circular tower (dating from around 1700) stands on its west side.In 1452, at the time of his murder, the castle belonged to William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas. In the 16th century the castle was acquired by the Crauford family. The Rutherfords acquired the building in the 18th century by which time it had been extended on its north side by low scale vernacular buildings and was primarily in farm use. Further farm structures were built to the east in the 20th century.The building was listed category B in 1987. The Historic Scotland description surmises that the structure was greatly reduced in size in 1766, as a date-stone bears this date.From 1966 to around 1987 the building held a "wayside hostelry" known as the Dungeon Bar in its vaulted basement. The bar was partly linked to a caravan park on the low-lying ground to its west.The property is said to be haunted by at least three ghosts.