| Balfron | 700 years old | Glasgow visitors | ||
| The village name “bail’-a-bhroin”, Balfron, means the town of mourning. | The first documentary reference to Balfron – one of the charters of the Abbey of Inchaffray – in 1303 alludes to the village as Buthbren and only later as Balfron. More… | The village was once a popular tourist resort where people came to spend their ‘fresh-air fortnight’ | ||
| Famous resident | All lit up | Logarithms | ||
| The architect Alexander (Greek) Thomson was a native of Balfron. | The village claims to be Scotland’s first gaslit town. | John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, was born here in Balfron in 1550. | ||
| Star Wars | Abduction | Balfron coins and notes | ||
| The residents of Balfron, share their village name with a well-known Star Wars planet. The fictional Balfron is an unwelcoming place inhabited by cave-dwelling folk and is also where Lando Calrissian met up with twin con artists, the Tonnika sisters after he met them at the High Stakes Casino. | In the year 1750 Rob Roy‘s son carried off Jean Kay, then a widow and heiress of Edinbellie, and Rob Oig, the youngest, who had married her, was hanged in Edinburgh three years afterwards on account of her abduction. | There was a time when Balfron issued its own currency. Click here for the story. | ||
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