The Culloch Burn

The Culloch Burn is a stream which flows into the River Avon in Slamannan, a village in the middle of Sliabh Mannan.  The Stirlingshire Avon is unconnected, except by name, with the considerably more famous river running through Shakespeare's Stratford.  In fact the name Avon derives directly from the Celtic word for river and there are several examples of the unimaginatively named 'River River' throughout the United Kingdom.

Although the village is more than 400 feet above sea level it lies in a natural basin in Sliabh Mannan, meaning the only ways out are all uphill. In consequence the lowest parts lie within a natural floodplain and any drainage bottleneck is vulnerable to being overwhelmed after heavy rain.

People who do not live near the headwaters of upland streams find it hard to take warnings against flooding seriously, as I have had occasion to remind local Council planners before now.

The above photograph shows the Culloch in a dry season. That's right, you can't see it. You can however see its banks just behind the electricity pole. You might even wonder how such a little burn has cut so deep a channel and why constant erosion is regularly changing its winding course.

An official will come out on a sunny summer day, observe this trickle of water and condemn as fantasists your correspondent and others who advise them to be careful when zoning areas for housing development.  Such a feeble watercourse, he thinks, could not flood a child's paddling pool.

 

Well the next photograph shows what can happen if it rains for a couple of days. You can still see the long rushes that mark the course of the Culloch, but now the burn is about a hundred yards wide because it has burst its banks and inundated the flood plain. 

 

Turn left from where the first two pictures were taken and you can just make out the outskirts of Slamannan, towards which the Culloch is flowing.  It is there where it joins the Avon as, in normal circumstances, a tiny tributary of a small river.

 

But when the Culloch looks like this, the confluence obviously poses more of a problem.

Now imagine what is likely to happen if additional housing were to be constructed on the southern outskirts of Slamannan, increasing the flow of surface water by reducing natural absorbency and also increasing domestic drainage into a system as volatile as this.

You're right.  Not smart.  So if in spite of my advice such developments go ahead, please remember:

I TOLD YOU SO!

Slamannan and its Neighbourhood

For a long time I was completely unaware that the nearby village had established a presence on the web.  I was recently pointed in the direction of this facebook page which contains a lot of pictures and stories about the village of Slamannan. It seemed to me that this deserves to be more widely known, along with an overall history of this interesting area. So here is a little introduction.  I shall try to add details of the village's history in due course.

Slamannan (above) is a village, or more accurately a group of villages in south east Stirlingshire, Scotland. Its population, including the outlying hamlets of Limerigg and Binniehill, (below) is in the region of 1,400.

Nestling in a natural hollow of Sliabh Mannan at the confluence of the River Avon and the Culloch Burn, it is around 150 metres above sea level and on a clear day commands views right across the Forth estuary to the Campsie Fells and Ochil Hills. The whole of the surrounding area is designated as being of Great Landscape Value and is home to a number of protected species including bats, bean geese and badgers.

At the centre of the village stands an impressive clock memorial to the dead of the Boer War, and south of this in the middle of the twentieth century a substantial council housing scheme was built. Further from the centre in all directions stretch more modern private housing developments.

There are three nineteenth century mansions nearby, one of which is now a respite home.

The village has its own primary school, community centre, medical centre and library. There are two take-aways, a chemists, grocers, post-office, cafe and garage.

It also has a lot of very nice people who are happy to talk about the place where they live, though when it snows in winter and the road to Falkirk is blocked for an hour or two the location can become a little less popular!

Black Forest Museum

If you plan on visiting the Black Forest Museum at Vogtsbauernhof, try picking a day when it isn't going to rain. Like any open air site, this one is vulnerable to the weather, though you can shelter inside several of the buildings.

This museum is a reconstruction of a little Bavarian village. Houses of this type were still inhabited until the mid twentieth century, though most of them, together with the implements that have been brought here from all around the Black Forest are of much older construction. The Twentieth Century was slow to catch up with life in the forest. There is a mill and there are various workshops still in use. On the day of our visit two thatchers were working on one of the house roofs. At various times there are craft demonstrations.

To say that you can immerse yourself in the past would be a trifle misleading. The village is too neat and tidy and somehow one can always tell when houses are no longer lived in. Of course you would expect to see far more people about in a real village; somehow tourists don't seem to count as real people for these purposes. However there are descriptive notices about the place to inform your visit and the buildings are complete and not ruined. It must have been a major labour of love to preserve and transport them all.

To have a physical connection with the way of life of former generations is so valuable. Too often we have destroyed what they left us as old fashioned or unhygienic, leaving our heirs nothing but pictures and descriptions. A vote of thanks is needed to all those who have worked to preserve a more tangible link.