BodyCam – Kilsyth Scotland - An early October walk around Kilsyth town center.

Kilsyth is a town roughly halfway between Glasgow and Stirling in North Lanarkshire Scotland.

From earliest recorded times Kilsyth was one of the main routes between Glasgow, Falkirk and Edinburgh, and is very close to the Roman Antonine Wall, the Forth and Clyde Canal and the main Glasgow to Edinburgh railway line, with the nearest railway station at Croy.

There is archaeological evidence of settlement since Neolithic times. The Romans recognized the strategic significance of Kilsyth; the Antonine Wall forts of Bar Hill and Croy Hill are clearly visible from the present-day town. In the Middle Ages, Kilsyth held a key strategic position on one of the main routes across the narrowest part of Scotland. It was the site of two, now ruined, castles at Balcastle and Colzium. These were shown in Timothy Pont's map of 1580 and can also been seen on Blaeu's map which was derived from it. The town officially came into being in 1620 although a barony of Kilsyth preceded this. Regarding the name of the town, modern research into Kilsyth's toponymy leads to different findings than earlier analysis.

The civil war Battle of Kilsyth took place on hillsides between Kilsyth and Banton in 1645. Kilsyth was later closely associated with the various attempts by the Jacobites to regain the crown. Bonnie Prince Charlie is reported to have spent the night in the town in January 1746. The battlefield is now under the Townhead Reservoir (Banton Loch) which is a largely artificial body of water used to feed the Forth and Clyde Canal, close to its highest elevation. The canal was cut through Dullatur Bog in 1769-1770 bringing economic benefit to Kilsyth.

Historically the parish was known as Moniabrugh, or one of its variants, with its name changing sometime in the 18th century. The town economy has shifted over the past three centuries from dairy farming, handloom weaving, tambouring and extractive industries (coal mining) to light engineering, transport and service industries. Many of the townsfolk of working age now commute to work in larger towns or Glasgow.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia