My Birthplace - Airthrey Castle

AIRTHREY CASTLE - now part of Stirling University

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Around 1792, Robert Adam built Airthrey Castle for Robert Haldane, who commissioned the design. Adam's design was influenced by his knowledge of classical Italian landscapes, as was the layout of the estate landscape, which was completed by Thomas White in 1798. During and after the Second World War, up until it became part of Stirling University, the castle was a maternity home. Many Tullibody people, including the author of this web site, were born there. I've attended classes in the castle, as a student, many times, and walked through its marvelous wooden paneled hall wondering which of its rooms I was born in. I'll never know.

Wednesday November 16, 2004 - From Bill Dow in Canada - My mother told me a story about Airthrey Castle: She said the beds in regular hospitals were pressed into service to tend to our wounded Scottish soldiers and also the wounded German prisoners. In April 1944 some sort of disease spread in Airthrey Castle Hospital which seemed to be quite contagious, even killing some of the mothers including the one in the bed besides my mom. My mom reported that this unfortunate happening was cause for some investigation of the standards at the 'hospital' which was reported in the newspapers of the time .This was happening just prior to my birth on April 7, 1944.

This picture was taken on Thursday, 1 September, 2005 from the top of the Wallace Monument. It shows part of the campus of Stirling University. Airthrey Castle is the building almost in the centre of the picture. The hills in the background are the Ochils. The rocky crag on the upper right hand side, among the trees, is the Witches Craig. The devil, in the guise of a black dog, is said to dance with the witches on the Witches Craig. A young Robert Louis Stevenson, who often holidayed at nearby Blairlogie, heard this story, and Black Dog became one of the characters in Robert's book, Treasure Island. The Witches Craig now gives its name to a pleasant caravan and camping site which lies below it, near the village of Blairlogie, alongside the A91, Stirling to St. Andrews Road. After Blairlogie, the A91 runs on along the Hillfoots of the Ochils through Menstrie, Alva, Tillicoultry, Dollar ,Muckhart and on towards Milnathort and then the Kingdom of Fife.

Manor - Only an attractive row of miners' housing commemorates Manor, an ancient defensive post and landing on the Forth. Manor, or Kingsnow House, had been a Roman Station, some vestiges of the trenches being lately visible. It was part of the Lordship of Stirling and feud by the Callenders about 1497. Ralph Dundas, grandfather of Ramsey of Ochtertyre, who wrote the above, was the last to live at Manor, his successor abandoning the old house, or castle, in 1729 to build a small snug house at Airthrey in 1747. He soon sold it to the Haldanes, patrons of Robert Adam, from the want of relish for a country life. Ironically, Robert Haldane resold the estate about 1796 to Dundas' nephew, Sir Robert Abercromby, and Airthrey subsequently succeeded Tullibody as the Abercromby Seat. (from Clackmannan and the Ochils - An Illustrated Architectural Guide - Adam Swan)