Plean and the Tor Wood – A Play Park and an Iron Age Broch
A few hours.
The route
Plean Country Park and the Tappoch Broch sit a couple of miles apart on a quiet back road north of Larbert, and together they make a lovely morning out with children.
There's a play park and woods to run about in, then a climb through the Tor Wood to an Iron Age broch you can walk right inside, and a warm lunch at Torwood to finish.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is Cromlix in Kinbuck, 14 miles away.
The day
Plean
It's a morning of woods and old stones, with space for a run about, a short climb through the trees and a warm lunch at the end, none of it more than a few minutes' drive from the rest.
About three and a half hoursAbout 2 miles on foot
Plean Country Park
A walk
Plean Country Park's free car park is off Cadger's Loan at the edge of Plean. The park is 89 hectares of woods, meadows and ponds that were once the grounds of Plean House, built around 1819 for a ship's captain who made his fortune with the East India Company, and the derelict house still stands. Coal was dug from pits round the edges of the estate until the early 1960s, and the bings are still there among the trees. There's a play area with picnic tables beside it, a trim trail for older children and grown-ups, wooden animals carved round the paths, and an enclosed field where dogs can run off the lead. The toilets, with baby changing and an accessible one, are open whenever the park is.
6 min by car
Tappoch Broch
An attraction
It's 6 minutes' drive to Glen Road in Torwood. Leave the car tidily on the verge where the track heads into the Tor Wood, keeping gateways clear. A signposted, waymarked path climbs through the trees to the top of the hill in about twenty minutes, past Torwood Castle, a tower house of 1566 that is now a roofless ruin, seen from outside. At the top stands the Tappoch Broch, an Iron Age stone roundhouse with walls up to seven metres thick. It was a mound until 1864, when more than 200 tons of rubble were cleared out of it. Walk in through its long entrance passage, look for the slot that once held the bar across the door, and find the stair climbing inside the wall. It's a path for walkers, over tree roots, and the broch sits on the edge of a rocky slope, so keep little ones close.
7 min by car
Blossoms at Torwood Garden Centre
Lunch
It's 7 minutes' drive by the A9 to Torwood Garden Centre, which has free parking. Blossoms, its café, serves lunch until the kitchen closes at 3.45pm, and the steak pie and macaroni cheese are the favourites. It opens at 9am, 10am on Sundays, and tables can't be booked. It's step-free, and dogs on a lead can sit out on the terrace. If it's full, Rousay's, the garden centre's other café, does soup and sandwiches until 4pm, and has the sheets for the Torwood Trail, animals hidden round the garden centre. Over Christmas and New Year, check before going.
If it rains
On a wet morning keep to Plean Country Park's surfaced paths and leave the broch for a dry day. Blossoms and the garden centre are all under a roof.
Where to stay
Photographs by Alan, Mark Duguid, Ewan Walker and Simon Hawkes via Google