A small part of the Tulliallan estate belonging to Viscount Keith adjoined Lord Dunmore’s land at Higgins Neuck opposite to Kincardine. In 1827 he began to construct a pier at the western margin of his holdings on the south bank to partner that which he had just completed at Kincardine. The pier was 256 yards long and was connected with the land by an embankment of mud 186 yards in length. This new pier was the third that had been erected within a very few years – the constant and rapid accumulation of mud which in other places was useful for reclamation by warping was here a problem as it soon silted up the foreshore at places where piers projected, and this made the earlier ferries unworkable. The new pier and embankment were therefore also intended to be part of a scheme to reclaim the foreshore to the east by brush warping. At a distance of 186 yards from the shore two double rows of piles were driven 15 feet apart, parallel to the channel, and warped with brushwood while the pier was being built. The outer piles projected 5 feet and the inner line 7 feet above the mud. This small reclamation was quite successful, as the mud within the enclosure accumulated to a depth of 7 feet till its surface rose above the high-water level of neap tides, when the sea could easily have been excluded by a low dyke, but this was not done. In course of time the accretion on both sides of the pier has resulted in the reclamation of about 30 acres of foreshore as seas greens (Cadell 1929, 20). The construction of the Clackmannan Bridge in 2008 changed siltation patterns again.
Falkirk Local History SocietyFalkirk Local History Society
Falkirk Local History Society 