Falkirk and New Lanark

The Kelpies can be found at the Grangemouth end of Helix Park at the confluence of the Forth/Clyde and Union canals. The Helix is an ecopark, part of the Falkirk Greenscape Initiative, transforming 350 hectares of land between Falkirk and Grangemouth and connecting 16 local communities through an extensive network of paths.

The Kelpies - Duke and Baron - name reflected the mythological transforming beasts possessing the strength and endurance of 10 horses. Water kelpies are the Scots name given to a shape-shifting water spirit inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. The photos hardly do justice to the scale and magnificence of these structures. At 30-metre-high the two horse-head sculptures were designed to depicting the heavy horse of Scottish industry, pulling the wagons, ploughs, barges and coalships that shaped the layout of the Falkirk area.

The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in central Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal – a height equating to eight double decker buses. Constructed to 21st century, state-of-the-art engineering it is already being recognised as an iconic landmark of Scotland's traditional engineering expertise. Designed to replace a series of lock gates built in the 19th century which have long since been demolished. 

Built ostensibly as a working boat lift it has become a major tourist attraction and it is possible to take a trip on the Wheel. We ascended in Archimedes – aptly named as the wheel works on his principle of displacement. Due to this concept the two cradles are equally balanced whatever their content and it therefore takes very little (green) power to turn the Wheel.

New Lanark Mill is a World Heritage Site,  a unique 18th-century mill village sitting alongside the River Clyde. There you can walk through millworkers’ houses, historic working machinery and view the nearby ‘Falls of Clyde’ waterfalls. The tour also includes the Annie McLeod Experience' ride which takes you back in time, Owen's School for Children, working textile machinery, People & Cotton exhibition, roof garden and village store.

The cotton mill village of New Lanark which was founded in the 18th century and became known, under the enlightened management of social pioneer Robert Owen, for providing decent homes, fair wages, free health care, a new education system for villagers and the first workplace nursery school in the world.