Undiscovered Scotland

 

Buchlyvie lies astride the main A811 as it travels west from Stirling towards Drymen and Dumbarton: and as the header photo shows, it is also home the junction with a "B" road heading towards Aberfoyle and the Trossachs.

The name is pronounced "Bucklyvie", which by some accounts is how it was spelled for much of its early life. The village was probably well established by 1600, and in 1672 it became a burgh. Its growth was largely due to traffic and business passing along the military road built in the early 1700s, whose line is roughly followed by the A811 today.

1856 saw the arrival in Buchlyvie of the single track railway between Stirling and Balloch. And in 1872 a junction was built here to provide for a line to Aberfoyle. But these railways never really prospered and the village never grew in the way you might expect of a settlement serving a railway junction. Passenger services on the Stirling line ceased as early as 1934, and on the Aberfoyle line in 1951.

While villages to the east like Kippen and Gargunnock have been bypassed by the modern road - the A811 - Buchlyvie has not. This can make it busier than those villages, but it has also allowed it to retain a wide range of services, making it a good candidate as a base covering both sides of central Scotland as well as the Trossachs.

You can think of Buchlyvie as extending from the prominent Village Hall tower at its west, uphill end to the bright red sandstone Parish Church at the east, downhill end of the village.

The Parish Church dates back to 1836 and was, according to an inscription on the south side facing the main road, built by public subscription. An earlier church, now abandoned, was built by a splinter group of the kirk in 1751 and stands on Station Road (and can just be glimpsed in the background of the image on the left).

As you climb the hill through the village you pass the Buchlyvie Inn, whose obvious coaching origins might just be consistent with a build date of 1851, but which must have had to rethink its marketing when the railway put the coaches out of business only five years later. Nearer the west end of the village is the Rob Roy Inn, which appears rather more recent.