Dunblane and Deanston Distillery

Today was our last day visiting Kirsty and David in Bridge of Allan and we left David to go to a photography workshop in Stirling and Kirsty to prepare for an evening family get together while we took a trip to Dunblane.

In the afternoon, after visiting Doune village and the Blair Drummond Smiddy farm shop we went to Deanston Distillery and had a tour and tasting. Here are a few of my photos.

The High St in Dunblane was quite quiet when we arrived.

We found the gold postbox. It was painted gold to celebrate local boy Andy Murray winning the 2012 Olympic Games gold medal in the Men's singles at tennis.

We headed for the cathedral....

...only to find it closed. We later discovered it opens at 10am.

So we set off on a short walk along the rive - Allan Water.

There is a community riverside rock garden along the east bank near the railway viaduct.

We crossed the river via the Faerie bridge. Built of ferro-concrete it was originally called the Ferro Bridge, but the name got corrupted.

We walked through The Haugh (Memorial Park). Hough is a Scottish word meaning a low-lying meadow beside a river.

It contains what is possibly the longest border of hostas in the world.

We recrossed the river into the town.

Time for some coffee. We visited Another Tilly Tearoom for a cup of coffee and were surprised to be asked if we had booked a table. It was surprisingly busy.

Then it was on once more to Dunblane Cathedral, which was now open. It is known as one of Scotland’s noblest medieval churches. A tower from the 1100s formed part of a later church dating to the 1200s. In 1560 the Church of Scotland became reformed or protestant. The use of the Cathedral was now drastically altered and the congregation needed only the Choir for use as the parish Church. The roof of the Nave fell in towards the end of the 16th century and the Nave remained roofless for 300 years, during which the congregation worshipped in the Choir.  Sir Rowand Anderson restored the cathedral in the late 1800s.A further restoration of the Choir was carried out under another noted Scottish architect, Sir Robert Lorimer, in 1914.

The church has some great modern stained glass windows.

The splendid-looking Flentrop Organ, installed in 1990, is the 4th organ in the Cathedral since 1873. It was designed by Hans Steketee, president of Flentrop Orgelbouw, Zaanden in the Netherlands. It includes the Lorimer façade of the old organ.

The weird and wonderful carvings around the cathedral  depict fantastic animals, both real and mythical.

Just across the square from the cathedral is the Dunblane Museum. It was much bigger than it looked from the outside.

Among other exhibits, t contains a tribute to Andy Murray...

....the evolution of the typewriter to an electronic word processor..

...and ancient artefacts found in the area, including this disc bead necklace from about 2000BC.

They also have the keyboards of the old cathedral organ.

Outside in the yard is a peaceful small herb garden.

Just along the road on the other side is the Leighton Library, Scotland's oldest  purpose-built library, dating from 1687. It was founded on the collection of Robert Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane, 1661-1670, later Archbishop of Glasgow, 1670-1674. In his will, Leighton left a sum of money for the building of the library for use by the clergy of Dunblane diocese.

Inside, among other things on display, was a copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

As we hadn't seen the village when we visited the castle the other day, we stopped off briefly in Doune.

They have a small statue of William Wallace...

...and an interesting roof-mounted sundial.

We stopped at  Blair Drummond Smiddy farm shop where we bought some scotch pies to take home and had a sandwich at the picnic tables outside.

Then we turned back towards Doune to visit Deanston Distillery  It sits by the River Teith....

...in what used to be a cotton mill.

We entered the visitor centre and were pleased to be able to book on the 2:30pm distillery tour.

In the 20 minutes we had to spare before the tour started we walked round the corner to Deanston village.

And here we are on the tour.

Not only do they use water from the river to make the whisky, they also use it to generate their own power. As their website says.

"Deanston is not your typical distillery. Built in 1785 as Adelphi Cotton Mill in the picturesque village of Deanston, our story has deep roots in the industrial history of Scotland. In 1965, after almost 200 years of trading, the cotton mill closed for good. It seemed the community’s days of trading were over. Enter Brodie Hepburn. A true pioneer, he saw potential in the battered old cotton mill. Nestled along the banks of the River Teith, he saw water soft enough for whisky-making with the strength to power a distillery. He saw a passionate community and an honest work ethic to become true whisky makers. And so, Deanston Distillery first opened its doors in 1966."

The malt gets mashed to create the wort here.

The wort is cooled to 20 degrees and yeast added to start the fermentation in the washbacks here.

We weren't allowed to take photos of the stills, but here is a phot from their website.

They have plenty of warehousing space to store the barrels while the whisky matures (and the angels take their share).

The tour finished with a tasting of their 12 year old, their 2008 Pedro Ximenez cask finished and their 15 year old Tequila cask finished whiskies. Delicious. Dawn was driving back to Bridge of Allan so got some miniatures to take away and have later. I bought a bottle of the 12 year old and some Virgin Oak.

Another great day out!

You can find more of my photos from today here on Flickr.