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This cache is part of a series of geocaches called Park Life. Caches are placed within our urban parks, community gardens or country parks. For more details and statistics on how you can expand the Park Life series please visit the Park Life webpage.
🌲*** Kettilstoun Mains *** 🌲
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Kettilstoun Mains Woodland Park is the site of a former aggregate quarry, with mining taking place here between 1992 and 2000. The 38 Hectare Site was returned to nature after it had served its mining purpose. A careful process of restoring the site was completed, with an emphasis on providing an environment for wildlife and a recreational area for local residents.
Restoration helped create three distinct habitats for wildlife - Woodland, Wetland, and Grassland - which now sustain a wide variety of birds, animals, plants and insects. For local residents a number of paths were created which criss-cross the site. The River Avon Heritage Trail runs from here west to Avonbridge, alongside the river (9 miles), and the same stretch is part of the John Muir Way, connecting Falkirk and Bo'Ness.
The impressive Avon Viaduct skirts the northern edge of the site, and the area where the quarry excavated next to the river was turned into The Avon Lagoon, a large pond which hosts a wide variety of birdlife. There are information boards on the wildlife here dotted around the park. Many years prior to the quarrying activity at Kettilstoun, it was home to a large grain mill and a large 18th Century mansion house - Avontoun House, the former boundary walls of which are still visible around the edges of the house's grounds (now a metal recycling company). Further back in history the fields just north of the River Avon here were the setting for The Battle of Linlithgow Bridge in 1526 as part of the internal fighting for the crown of Scotland.
18th Century Map of Kettilstoun
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