Crook of Devon

The village is located on what was a major medieval east–west route between Stirling and St Andrews at the lowest point on the river which is often fordable, and where it was crossed by a major north–south road from Glen Devon (the main pass through the Ochil Hills range to the north) that skirted around the bend in the river. The combination of crossroads and ford encouraged an early settlement, and in 1615 it was raised to a Burgh of Barony by James VI for the local landowner John Halliday of Tullibole. The classic triangular shape of its marketplace can still be seen in the roads and field boundaries of the Back Crook area close to the former ford, although the diversion away from the…