River Carron, Forth facts for kids

The Carron at its confluence with the Garvald Burn, near Fankerton.

The Carron (Gaelic: Carrann) is a river in central Scotland, rising in the Campsie Fells and flowing along Strathcarron into the Firth of Forth. It has given its name to several locations in Stirlingshire, as well as a type of cannon, a line of bathtubs, two warships, and an island in the Southern Hemisphere.

Course

The Carron at Glensburgh, close to its mouth.

The river rises in the Campsie Fells before flowing into the Carron Reservoir and along Strathcarron. It passes by Denny, then between Larbert and Falkirk, then past Carron village. Just as the M9 motorway crosses the river, the Forth and Clyde canal joins the river. It then flows into the Forth near Grangemouth. The tributary water sources are: Carron Reservoir, Avon Burn, Earl’s Burn, Auchenbowie Burn, Loch Coulter Reservoir, Bonny Water, Glencryan Burn, Red Burn, Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal.

Carron Bridge

The Carron Bridge crosses the Carron at the eastern extremity of Strathcarron Forest. It was built in 1695 to replace a ford that had existed for many hundreds of years as part of an old drove road from Kilsyth to Stirling. This bridge, with its two span stone arches, looks larger than it needs to be because the river was much larger before Carron Dam was built to create a reservoir in the 1930s.

Strathcarron Loch / Carron Valley Reservoir

The 1,000-acre (400-hectare) Strathcarron Reservoir, completed in 1939, is stocked with brown trout by the Carron Valley Fishery.

The reservoir has proved to be an ideal habitat for the Carron's indigenous brown trout population. Thriving on the rich feeding of the newly flooded strath and with easy access to its many excellent spawning and nursery streams, the "wild brownies" of Strathcarron Reservoir are numerous.

The Carron Works

The Carron Company was an ironworks established in 1759 on the north bank of the Carron two miles downstream of Falkirk. This company was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.

The company's local coal mining operations were known as the "Carron Collieries". The villages of Carronhall and Carronshore contained dwellings for miners and factory workers. This area was serviced by the Carron Branch Railway.

Through the factory's products, the river's name passed to the naval cannon called the carronade. These big guns were used during the Napoleonic Wars in melees such as the Battle of Trafalgar as well as various naval battles during the American Civil War.

The Carron Company was broken up in 1982 and various parts of the company closed down, Carron Bathrooms Ltd [1] who manufacture Acrylic Baths and shower trays, and Carron Phoenix [2] who manufacture kitchen sinks, are still in existence.

Warships

The USS Carronade (named after the cannon that was named after the river), was a ship of the U.S. Navy that was completed in 1955. Finished too late to serve in the Korean War, she was taken out of service but re-commissioned for the Vietnam War. She was decommissioned again in 1969.

Carronade Island

In July 1916, HMAS Encounter was on wartime patrol and came to a small island on the northern coast of Western Australia. The crew discovered two bronze cannons standing six feet apart and pointing into the air.

Since at the time these guns were erroneously thought to be carronades, the island on which they had been found was named Carronade Island after this discovery. Several 20th century observers misconstrued the origin of these guns and they were long thought to give weight to the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia. However, scientists at the Western Australian Museum in Fremantle have recently made a detailed analysis and have determined that these weapons are almost certainly of Makassan, rather than European, origin.

Images for kids

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  The Strathcarron Reservoir.