Polmont North Parish Church

1844 to 1969

HISTORY OF POLMONT VILLAGE
THE origin of the name Polmont is uncertain but most probably it is derived from a Celtic word meaning "Pool on the moor" - a moor now highly cultivated and very fertile. Links with another culture - Roman are still in evidence at Polmont Hill where sections of the Roman Wall constructed by Lollius Urbicus in the second century AD, during the reign of Antonius Pius, can still be seen. The wall, built on the line of military posts established by Agricola during the previous century, runs west through the parish, and through the churchyard immediately to the north of the church.

Originally Polmont lay to the north of the church - the Smiddy Brae, North Foot and Jink-a-bout area. Early records of Polmont, circa 1498, note that in that year a chapel dedicated to the "Blessed Virgin Mary" was built by John Bellenden, Abbot of Holyrood. Polmont at that time was under the control of Holyrood but after the dissolution of the monasteries the land was distributed by the Crown to various barons and nobles enjoying Royal patronage. Polmont then became part of the Barony of Kerse, Reddingmuir and Whyteside Rig.

The leading family locally at this time - around the turn of the 16th century - was that of Campbell de Polmont, who issued a decree that an "Annual Fayre" be held at Redden, now Redding. This marked the establishment of what was to become known as the Falkirk Tryst, on rising ground south-west of Redding, where each year some 50,000 cattle, driven from all over Scotland, changed hands.

But in the 16th century Polmont lay in very different surroundings to those of today. The sea came up to where Grangemouth now stands, and a considerable area of sand - "La Grande Sable" - or the "Good Sand", named by the French followers of the Scottish Royal House in residence at Linlithgow Palace, was visible from the region of the Salmon Inn Brae.

In the following century - in 1604 - when the Scottish House assumed residence in London, the nobles could no longer administer their estates and the lands were acquired by wealthy "industrialists". This transfer marked the origins of the estates which remained much as they were, boundary-wise, until this century. Much of the land in Polmont was acquired by the Hamilton family, and the title "Lord Polmont" was conferred on the Duke of Hamilton.

At Edinburgh on August 17, 1611, King James VI granted to James, Marquis of Hamilton, and his heirs, the lands of Easter and Wester Saltcoats, which were once owned by a David Forrester; the land Carron-flats Inch, Kersiebank; the land of upper and lower Polmont with the mill and ground adjoining the mill, and the property of Little Kerse, the Hill, Gilston, Brokieneuk, Reidheugh, Little and Nether Gilston, Whyte-side, Redding, Middlerig, and Lathendale.

King James decreed that Polmont should be "the chief burgh with the power of holding assemblies and gathering wapinschaws" (weapon shows). He further declared, in an edict, that Polmont should be a free burgh with the Marquis of Hamilton possessing powers to create bailiffs, burghers and councillors. Residents were to be given complete freedom to buy and sell, to hold a free market annually opening on July 26 and lasting eight days, and to buy or sell land. They could also have a market square and a market cross, and hold burgh meetings. Ground was also granted for grazing at Redding.

Kersiebank, which was in existence in 1143 when King David I chartered it to the Abbey of New Battle, Midlothian, along with other ground to the north, was perhaps the finest estate in the district at the beginning of the 17th century, and during the middle of the 16th century, according to records, Robert, Commendator of the Monastery of Holyrood, chartered most of the land between Kersiebank (which is now known as Inchyra) and the Firth of Forth to James, Earl of Arran, who was an ancestor of the Duke of Hamilton.

During this period in history several battles raged north of where Inchyra Hotel now stands. In 1298 the Battle of Falkirk is thought to have been waged in a field to the west of the hotel site - near to the Grange Burn. Tradition has it that the army of Edward I passed close to the present hotel site as the route from east to the north entered the carse lands quite close to Jink-a-bout, which was then known as Polmont Miln. After the battle, when Sir William Wallace was betrayed, taken to London and cruelly tortured before he was executed, it was a local personage - Sir John Menteith of Kerse - who was implicated. Polmont also witnessed prepara¬tions for the second Battle of Falkirk in 1746, according to Patrick Haldane of Bearcroft, who reported in mid-January of that year when military manoeuvres were taking place in the district prior to the battle, that a number of Hawley's men moved into Polmont on horse and foot from Linlithgow. They had followed a track over Upper Kinneil and into Inveravon before, it is believed, resting for the night in Polmont.

Four years after the battle - in 1750 - only a marginal decision pre-vented the establishment of iron works at Jink-a-bout. Instead they were established in 1759 at Carron, to become the now world-famous Carron Company.

Polmont at this time boasted a church, some single-storey thatched cottages, a school, a shoe-making industry, a joiner's shop, a blacksmith's, several small shops and two mills. The mill, which operated near Little Kerse, was burned down about 70 years ago. The one at Jink-a-bout was operating as far back as 1595, and at the turn of this, the 20th century, belonged to the Wilson family. A local rhyme ran thus:

"Taylor of the Raven
Meikle of the Hill
And Wee Johnnie Wilson of Jink-a-bout Mill."

When the main Edinburgh - Falkirk road was constructed, with a con¬sequent demand for housing, the son of Patrick Bennet, Polmont's first minister, feued land for houses, shops and so on subject to the condition that the new part of Polmont would be named Bennetstown, a name which did not last for many years as, in 1843 when Polmont Station came into being, Bennetstown became known as Old Polmont. Villagers took a keen interest in the Kirk, the school - and the taverns. Last century there were four taverns in Polmont - the Black Bull, the Crown, the Lion, and a fourth which was known as "McFall's". Of the four only the Black Bull remains. Formerly a Masonic Lodge, the Black Bull today retains many symbols relating to the Craft. According to the records of the time, "the number of taverns and public houses is large and might be spared without injury to the comfort, and with advantage to the morals, of the villagers." The sanctuary of an inn probably meant more then than today for travel, in a slow-moving, buffeting coach, or on foot, was much slower and less comfortable.

On the educational front the village was well served. On the site now occupied by Ivybank dairy was a school named "Thornhall", and in the Back Row a Miss McPherson ran a sewing school which was later utilised as a public library. A Miss Allan also ran a school for girls which was financed by the proprietors of Polmont Bank estate. Yet another school, run by the Kirk, stood on the site of the old school opposite the present Kirk. Boarders at the school, which was for boys only, stayed in Orchard House, connected to the schoolhouse. Navigation was one of the subjects taught at the Kirk's school, which had a single-storey schoolhouse. Another storey was added in 1795. At a cost of £365 the school was replaced in the mid 1850s - and served generations of Polmont children until early 1968 when yet another "new" school, of the hutted variety, was erected on a site to the north of the church hall.