Weird & wonderful · Central Scotland
Scotland's eccentrics: pineapples, kelpies and lawnmower-shaped towns
The unexpected side of Scotland's heritage — folly architecture and modernist sculpture in equal measure.
Edinburgh and the Highlands get the postcards but Scotland's middle belt is where the country's strange streak hides — a pineapple-shaped 18th-century summerhouse, two 30-metre stainless-steel horse heads, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh's never-quite-built fantasy domestic dream finally realised.
Places in this guide
★ Iconic📷 5Follies · Central Scotland
The Dunmore Pineapple
An 18th-century garden folly topped with a giant stone pineapple — Scotland's strangest building.
★ Iconic📷 4Memorials & monuments · Central Scotland
The Kelpies
Two 30-metre stainless-steel horse-head sculptures — the world's largest equine sculptures.
Flagship📷 4Historic houses · Central Scotland
House for an Art Lover
Mackintosh's never-built 1901 design, finally realised in Glasgow in the 1990s.
★ Iconic📷 4Canal locks · Central Scotland
The Falkirk Wheel
The world's only rotating boat lift, lifting boats 35 m.
Flagship📷 3Theme parks · Central Scotland
M&D's Theme Park
Scotland's national theme park at Strathclyde Country Park.