Congratulations to the winners of the Strathblane Heritage Trail Quiz. Five winners, who all achieved a perfect score, receive £20 vouchers to spend at the Kirkhouse Inn. Three runners-up receive £10 vouchers to use at Milne & Byrne Cafe. Many thanks to the...
A Treasure Trove of Scottish Resources Kirkhouse Inn and Farm and the Blane Valley Railway crossing the A81. July 1952. National Collection of Aerial Photography If you didn’t know your SCRAN from your NCAP, or your Canmore from your HES…….then you sure will now if...
Memoir Summer Knickers – a Scottish Wartime Childhood by Sarah Paton Wiseman A chance conversation at a party in January 2024 was behind the latest great addition to the Reminiscences section of Strathblane Heritage. That’s how co-chair Anne Balfour heard about an...
On a pleasant summer’s evening back in the late 1990s, Strathblane Lawn Tennis Club president Professor David Hole and a fellow-player headed to Dunblane for a doubles match in the Lawn Tennis Association’s Central Scotland league. Their cheery mood was enhanced when...
BALLEWAN Painting of Ballewan House, often known as The Ha', by Connie Simmers BALZEOUN Ballewan is an estate in the Blane Valley that was carved out of the earldom of Lennox. For two centuries it belonged largely to the Craig family, culminating in Milliken Craig...
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STRATHBLANE WORLD WAR 1 PROJECT: 9 ALEXANDER LOWE, SAPPER ROYAL ENGINEERS, AGED 25 Alex Lowe's grave Steam train on the Somme 1918 with men ofthe Railway Operating Division Effie Lowe (MOBE) in her QMAAC uniform The lodge at Parklea (now Blanefield House) where Alex...
"Nothing is now left of Old Netherton save the smithy and the school-house, and its very name seems likely to perish, for the factory originally called Blane Printfield has expanded to such ample proportions, and covered its environs with so many workers' houses that...
The Printworks (from John Guthrie Smith 1886. Photograph by John Coubrough) Block printing is the printing of patterns on fabrics using a carved block, usually made from wood. It originated in India around the 5th century BC but did not arrive in Scotland until the...
John Guthrie Smith records that the neat little church and manse belonging to the Free Church stands on the site of the old village of Netherton and the first ordained minister was the Rev George Rennie. Early records indicate that by 1864 there was a sufficient...
Silk postcard sent by gardener Sandy Mitchell, fighting on the Western Front, to his wife Georgina, living in staff quarters at Duntreath. Sandy, a Private in the Scottish Rifles, was killed at Arras in April 1917. He is remembered on Strathblane War Memorial. Boer...
The parish of Strathblane, some twenty square miles in size, lies in the south-west corner of Stirlingshire. It was at one time part of the county of Dunbarton and as an ecclesiastical parish is still part of Dunbarton Presbytery. It is a very beautiful district. The...
A delightful memoir of a small girl’s life in Strathblane in the 1940s & 50s
The Strathblane Notebooks Life in a Stirlingshire Village before the First World WarBy Alex Urquhart edited by Anne Balfour Quotation from the headstone of Alex Urquhart's parents in Strathblane Cemetery Alex Urquhart (1894-1978) Strathblane Heritage Society...
In response to suggestions from several friends I have sought to give a picture of life in the village during the period 1900-1910, during the whole of which time I was resident in it. It is not intended to be what is generally known as a "history." I wish to...