by G.B. Bailey
Whilst carrying out routine monitoring of the District’s planning applications in the third week of November 1984 the Keeper of Archaeology & Local History noted the proposed development of the north corner plot at the junction of Vicar Street and Bank Street. This area of the town was considered to be of particular historical and archaeological interest due to its proximity to the parish church which is assumed to have been the focal point of the early settlement at Falkirk. It had also been postulated by John Reid that the line of the northern defences of the old burgh lay in the vicinity.
As a thoroughfare of some antiquity Vicar’s Loan would also have been important providing the point of penetration of this defensive circuit by means of a port.
Falkirk Local History Society 