Doune

Bridge and Castle

The Bridge of Teith is narrow enough that you notice it. Robert Spittal, royal tailor to James IV, paid for it in 1535 to replace a ferry, and though the western side was widened in 1866 it still only just does the job. The A84 crosses here now, into the middle of the village, and if you stand on the bridge you get the view east to Doune Castle sitting up above the river.

The castle dominates the town from that hill, and it earns most of the attention. Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, rebuilt it in its present form in the late fourteenth century, and it has since worked as a royal hunting lodge, a dower house, and — more recently — a film set. It stood in for Castle Anthrax in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for Winterfell in the first series of Game of Thrones, and for Castle Leoch across much of Outlander. Tight framing let one castle play several places at once.

The Cross and the Red Lion

The village focal point is the Mercat Cross, in a triangular space where the main streets meet. Public executions were moved here from the castle by order of Charles I, which is a lot of history for a road junction.

In the centre is the Red Lion Inn, a village inn of over 200 years with six bedrooms and a courtyard. The kitchen does a chicken, venison, cranberry and pistachio terrine at £4.95, a steak and ale pie at £9.95, chicken breast with haggis at £10.95, and an apple and bramble crumble to finish. It specialises in locally sourced ales from Central Scotland.

Main Street to the Riverside

For cake, the Buttercup Cafe at 7 Main Street has won a Scottish Home Baking Award and sits second of the seven places to eat in Doune on Tripadvisor. Also on the main street is Harvey Maps, a well-known maker of walking and outdoor maps, with its headquarters here.

You'll want those maps. Cross the bridge and a footpath runs parallel to the River Teith for about half a mile to Deanston, where the old cotton mill — Britain's first integrated one, built 1785 — is now a distillery that runs on electricity generated from the river. Doune Ponds, forty acres of former gravel pits turned woodland and water, has an all-abilities path network and wild orchids. There's a heritage trail with indicator boards linking Doune and Deanston.

Pistols and Practical Arrival

Doune once made pistols. In 1647 a blacksmith called Thomas Caddell settled here and began making all-steel weapons, borrowing pattern-welding from Viking swordsmithing. Four generations of Caddells worked the trade until Birmingham competition killed it around 1800. One contemporary judged that "no pistol made in Britain excelled or perhaps equalled those of his making, either for sureness or beauty." Genuine ones are displayed at the heritage centre.

There's no station — Dunblane, a short bus ride away, has the trains, seven minutes to Stirling. The A820 runs straight through the middle of the village, which Undiscovered Scotland describes as "at times, an excellent argument for the abolition of the motor vehicle."

Sweetie Lane

A mile south, past the safari park, Alexander Ferguson — the man who invented Edinburgh Rock — was born here and bought up the whole of Graham Street, which the village still calls Sweetie Lane.