Summer Road Trip Drive From Milnathort On A91 Road To Visit Menstrie Clackmannanshire Scotland

Tour Scotland Summer travel video of a road trip drive, with Scottish music, from Milnathort in Perthshire, West on the A91 road through Yetts O' Muckhart, Pool of Muckhart, Dollar, Tillicoultry and Alva on ancestry visit to Menstrie in Clackmannanshire. Menstrie is a small Hillfoot village situated at the western end of the Ochil Hills. William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling was born in 1567 in Menstrie. He was a Scottish courtier and poet who was involved in the Scottish colonisation of Habitation at Port Royal, Nova Scotia and Long Island, New York, America. William was the son of Alexander of Menstrie and Marion, daughter of an Allan Couttie. The family was old and claimed to be descended from Somerled, Lord of the Isles, through John of Islay. Because his father died in 1580, and William was entrusted to the care of his great uncle James in Stirling, he was probably educated at Stirling grammar school. There is a tradition that he was at the University of Glasgow; and, according to his friend the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden, he was a student at Leiden University. As a young man, William became tutor to the Earl of Argyll and accompanied him on his travels in France, Spain and Italy. William married, before 1604, Janet, daughter of Sir William Erskine, one of the Balgonie family. Introduced by Argyll at court, he received the place of Gentleman Usher to Prince Charles, son of James I of England who was also King James VI of Scotland, in 1603, and continued in favour at court after Prince Charles became Charles I of England in 1625. In 1621, King James I granted William Alexander a royal charter appointing him mayor of a vast territory which was enlarged into a lordship and barony of Nova Scotia, meaning New Scotland; the area is now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and parts of the northern United States. The creation of Baronets of Nova Scotia was used to settle the plantation of the new province, which was later increased, at least on paper, to include much of Canada. He briefly established a Scottish settlement at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, led by his son William Alexander the younger. However the effort cost him most of his fortune, and when the region, now Canada's three Maritime Provinces and the state of Maine, was returned to France in 1632, it was lost. He was unable unable to obtain from the treasury, in spite of royal support, £6,000 as compensation for his losses. He spent his later years with limited means. However Alexander's settlement provided the basis for Scottish claims to Nova Scotia, and his baronets provided the Coat of arms of Nova Scotia and Flag of Nova Scotia which are still in use today. On 22 April 1636, King Charles told the Plymouth Colony, which had laid claim to Long Island but had not settled it, to give the island to William Alexander. Through his agent James Farret, who personally received Shelter Island and Robins Island, Alexander in turn sold most of the eastern island to the New Haven Colony and Connecticut Colony. William Alexander died in London, England, on 12 February 1640.

The Glenochil Whisky Distillery was founded in 1760 in Menstrie. By the 1880s the distillery was one of the most productive in Scotland. Production of whisky stopped in 1929.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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