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Roads
Click map for larger image
Map based on half-inch OS map of Edinburgh
and Lanark, published 1913.
With thanks to Ordnance Survey.
Edinburgh - Linlithgow - Falkirk - Kilsyth
On the Lothians/Linlithgow sheet a road is shown heading
west over Linlithgow Bridge. This appears to be picked
up on the Stirlingshire sheet as a dotted line running
through Falkirk towards Kilsyth.
Although it looks like the course of a road, there
are two difficulties which have to be taken into consideration.
One is that on one edition of the sheet (for example,
as shown in Jeffrey Stone’s Illustrated Maps of Scotland)
this line is coloured as if it was a county boundary
with Stirlingshire and Clydesdale shown above and below
the line. Another edition (see NLS)
however, shows the county boundary well to the south
of the line and in its correct position, with the dotted
line standing on its own. This suggests that there was
a mistake in the engraving of the first plate although
it does not clarify the status of the dotted line.
Another difficulty is that the Antonine Wall is shown
on both plates, and is based by a dotted line on the
Pont
original, which is thought to have been added by
Robert Gordon when preparing the map for publication.
This has led to the suggestion that the dotted line
we are concerned with, was mistakenly engraved twice
as the Antonine Wall. However, a close inspection shows
that the dotted line on the original was in fact engraved
correctly so that the line we are concerned with was
not associated with the Wall.
With these caveats, we have to give serious consideration
to the line being a representation of a road. It looks
in fact to be a good fit for the line of the A9 as far
as Falkirk and then with the A803 to Bonnybridge and
the B816 to Castlecary (both shown on the Military Survey).
Beyond this point it is shown very close to the river
heading to Kilsyth.
In partial support of this being a road, we can note
Pont’s mention that "The hieway to Glasgow runs through
Falkirk." It is interesting to note that it is only
5 miles to Kirkintilloch which on the Lower Clydesdale
sheet has a road to Glasgow and a bridge at Inchbelle,
one mile east of Kirkintilloch in the direction of Kilsyth.
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