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Dist:0.3km<br/>Gallangad burn runs along beside the trees on the left.
©Stuart MacInnes
Dist:0.4km<br/>See also [[2800003]], which is a view in the opposite direction from the same point.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.4km<br/>This is the same waterfall as shown in [[2799849]], but the present photograph shows it from a viewpoint higher up on the opposite bank.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.4km<br/>This is one of the waterfalls that are indicated on the 1:25000 OS map. See [[2799939]] for a different view.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.4km<br/>The woods line the glen of the Gallangad Burn. See the 1:25000 map, which depicts the power lines leaving the woods at this angle in the boundary fence. For a view in the opposite direction from the same point, see [[2800004]].
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.4km<br/>See [[2799862]] for a view of the whole boulder in context. The small angular pieces of stone are bonded together directly at the lower right, and are cemented together by a softer material to the upper left. The area shown here is about 20cm across.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.4km<br/>The boulder on the left bank is about a metre and a half across, and has an interesting structure: [[2799883]].
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.5km<br/>On foot, the route can be followed further, across Cameron Muir ([[1713408]]) and as far as Finnich Toll ([[919017]]). See [[460723]] for another part of the road.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.6km<br/>
©Stephen Sweeney
Dist:0.6km<br/>The photo was taken from the point where the burn passes beneath the road, near Gallangad Lodge (for a similar view in a different season, see [[828191]]). For a view in the opposite direction from the same point, see [[1725238]]; note that the photos were taken a week apart, which explains why there is ice in the burn in only one of them.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.6km<br/>Facing East.
©Stephen Sweeney
Dist:0.6km<br/>The photograph was taken from Auchincarroch Road, which is also one of the local core paths (since there is no pavement, walkers should look out for traffic). See also [[2536941]]. At the time of submission of the present photograph, it was primarily sheep farming that was carried on here, and plans for a ten-turbine wind farm had not yet been approved; the wind farm would be centred on the [[992573]]; see [[2092978]]. When the very extensive Strathleven Estate was put up for sale in 1950, "The Grouse Moor of Dumbarton Muir and Merkins Farm" was lot number 9 (the tenant at that time was Mr W J Bennie). The lot amounted to 6261 acres, 1 rood, 38 poles. The grouse moor was described as "well butted", and "was once one of the finest in the country, producing 1000 brace of grouse in good season". Faint remnants of grouse butts can still be seen on the moor, some of them marked on OS maps (see [[1213807]] and [[2886979]]), others not ([[2495158]]). The Strathleven Estate that was disposed of in 1950 by means of Messrs Jackson-Stops and Staff was owned by the Crum-Ewings, who were formerly known as the Ewings of Strathleven; see [[1058768]]. The farms, though, were let out to tenant farmers. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the farmer at Merkins was John Corson Anderson (d.1909), formerly of Strachurmore ([[NN1000]]) in Argyllshire; in 1797, the farmer was John Galloway [Farm Horse Tax Rolls]. The Strathleven estate had formerly been called Levenside; at an even earlier period, it formed part of the lands of Kirkmichael-Fleming [for the details, see pages 208-210 of the second volume of Joseph Irving's "The Book of Dumbartonshire" (1879)]. William Cochran, a grandson of the first Earl of Dundonald, had a mansion house built at Levenside: [[1058768]]. After his death, the estate passed into the ownership of the advocate Archibald Campbell, and then to his son John Campbell, who was better known by his judicial title, Lord Stonefield. It was during that family's ownership of Levenside that Merkins was added to the estate. In the 1830s, the Glasgow merchant James Ewing bought the estate from Lord Stonefield's grandson. Ewing changed the name of the mansion house and estate to Strathleven. As noted above, the Strathleven estate was finally sold off as lots in 1950. The name Merkins is probably connected with "the ferkins and merkins" mentioned in a 1609 charter of James VI, although this sheds no light on the meaning of the name; the charter sets out the boundaries of Dumbarton's Common Muir with reference to local place-names, the relevant part being as follows: "... and therefrae to the common furds, and therefrae to the common cairn called the Lang Cairn, and therefrae westward to the Red brae, upon the lands and merches of the ferkins and merkins, and therefrae to the north-west part of the hill where the Standand Stanes are fixt; and therefrae westward to the auld monument of stone called the Common Kist" [Joseph Irving, "The History of Dumbartonshire" (1860), page 179]. [In J.G.Smith's "Strathendrick and its Inhabitants from Early Times" (1896), the transcription of this part of the charter is slightly different: see [[992573]]. For example, the reading given there is "Forkins and Merkins".] The present-day Red Brae is adjacent to Merkins Muir, suggesting that the latter does indeed correspond to the "ferkins and merkins" of the charter. All of the other places mentioned in that section of the charter are still identifiable: [[1402259]], [[1081508]], [[1769955]], the [[992573]], and [[915099]] (that last item also explains where all the stones went that formerly covered the Common Kist). The Pont/Blaeu map of the Lennox (published in 1654, but based on surveys in the 1580-90s) shows "Merknisk" near the Burn of Mewy (probably the Finland Burn; see [[2368990]]). Roy's Military Survey of Scotland (1740s-50s) does not include the farm by name, but his map does not always show or name all of the farms in a given area.
©Lairich Rig
Dist:0.6km<br/>At Auchencarroch Road.
©Stephen Sweeney
Dist:0.6km<br/>Near the path to the trig point.
©Stephen Sweeney
Dist:0.6km<br/>The bridge taking the road over the Gallangad Burn was recently destroyed by storms. See [[2799655]] and [[2799626]] for other views of the damage.
©Lairich Rig

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