Billy Bremner Heritage Walk

Introduction To The Billy Bremner Heritage Walk

Billy Bremner lived in Raploch, Stirling, until he signed for Leeds United in December 1959 at the age of 17. This short heritage walk explores the sites that would have been important to Billy, as well as memorials erected to remember him. It is possible to link this trail with others in the local area as described at the end of the walk description.

Terrain

The heritage trail is mainly on pavements or made paths. There is one section by the river which can be muddy but it is possible to by-pass this if it is too wet. It is mainly flat with only slight gradient.
The linked trails have varying terrain and gradients, please read the linked descriptions for more information.

Getting there

There are train stations in Stirling and Bridge of Allan.
From Stirling train station, it is a short walk across to Stirling bus station and from there several buses travel to Raploch. See timetables for exact details. Alternatively, it is an approximately 20-minute walk. There are also buses from the Bridge of Allan to Raploch or a 1-hour walk. If travelling by car the address for the start of the walk is: Raploch Community Campus Drip Road Stirling FK8 1RD.

There is no public car park but plenty of on street parking. Please be considerate when parking and take care as the campus is situated on a main road.

Start

The trail starts at the front of the Raploch Community Campus building.

1. Campus to Huntly Crescent

Start outside, facing the Campus building and begin the walk by heading down the right-hand side of the building. There is a campaign to secure a memorial to Billy to commemorate his early life in Raploch and the proposal is that this would be placed towards the front of this area. As you head down the side of the building walk down the pedestrian area, past the stone monument and on to Glendevon Drive. Follow the pavement along the Drive until the junction with Huntly Crescent. On your left are the Community Campus football pitches, which are on the site of a small play park.

Although none of the original houses remain, over to the right was where Billy’s best friend Izzy lived and he would come here to play football with her on the play park. Other friends would also come along and there would be matches with teams of various sizes, at times up to fifteen-a-side. It was here that Billy was given the nickname, ‘Brock’. As Willie McQullian explained:

She and Billy were playing football aged about 12. Billy thumped the ball and Izzy put her hand out and it rattled against the swing-poles and it bent back her fingers so hard that she thought they were broken. A passing local man Eddie Farling said “you’re for it, Brock”, Izzy said “his names Billy” and the man said said “its Brock from now on”.

Willie McQuillian

2. Shooting Practice

Retrace your steps back to the campus and the side of the building, level with the stone monument. The campus is built on the site of the Alexander Bus builders and when Billy was young this side had large steel roll down doors, which he and his friends would use for shooting practice.

St Modans Pupil Guide: Alexander bus builders

3. Campus to Weir Street

Now turn around so the campus building is behind you, walk straight past the monument, past two bollards, out of the pedestrian area and onto Weir Street.

4. Weir Street

Billy lived at 35a Weir Street which is at the bottom of the street nearest the Raploch Community Campus from where you entered. Little remains of the buildings as they were in his time here but there are pictures on the website and houses you will see later on the walk that will enable you to imagine what it was like during his time.

The typical style of housing when Billy grew up in the Raploch were two and three apartment houses, with a central close as entry into the apartments. Billy’s house was located on the site of a private car park and would have looked much like the drawing below.

As you walk the street you can get views of Stirling Castle on the right-hand side through the new buildings. At the end of the street, the buildings stop and there is a small area of green with good views to the castle.

St Modans Pupil Guide: Weir Street

5. Raploch Road to Billy Bremner Way

This is a short stage of the trail that takes you from the street that Billy lived on to the one that is named after him. At the end of Weir Street turn right and walk along Raploch Road. You will shortly come to Billy Bremner Way which is on the left-hand side of Raploch Road. The building development that Billy Bremner Way was previously the site of St Mary’s RC Primary School which Billy attended from 1947. So you have just followed the route Billy would have taken to primary school as a small boy – although the scenery would have been very different.

According to Izzy who would meet Billy in Weir Street to walk to school together, the walk would have been an opportunity to practice football skills. Billy usually had a ball as his dad kept him supplied with them. But it was no problem if you did not have a ball, you would just borrow one that you saw in a garden along the way!

6. Billy Bremner Way to the riverside path

Having seen Billy Bremner Way, you come back out onto Raploch Road and the junction with Drip Road. Here you want to be on the right-hand side of Raploch road and walk round into Drip Road. As you turn the corner, you will see a small gap between buildings on the opposite side of the road. This is marked by a sign saying Green Gate Path. Take care as you cross as this is a busy road.

This path leads to the riverside path but care should be taken as it is not paved, can be muddy and is popular with dog walkers. While it is known that young people frequently swam in the river, there is no firm evidence that Billy did, but as his childhood friends all recall spending days there, with jam sandwiches to keep them going, it is likely that this area was one that he played in. Continue along the river path until it moves away from the edge of the river onto a wider, paved river walk.
If the path appears too muddy it is possible to by-pass this and join the river walk further down where it becomes paved. To do this, continue along Drip Road and then turn left into Woodside Road. Follow the road to the end and this will bring you out at the paved walk.

7. The Riverside Walk

While this is a stretch of the walk that has less direct connection to the young Billy, it is of interest for other reasons linked to Billy. The first is that this side of Raploch has undergone far less redevelopment and so many of the houses are similar to those that would have been in the area of Raploch that Billy grew up in and can give a flavour of his childhood.
The street in the picture is one that friends of Billy’s would play football on, although not usually Billy as this was the other side of Raploch from where he lived. Those who did play used the lampposts to mark the goal lines and would play in the street between them. There were few cars and they just needed to be careful when the bus came along. If you want to take a small detour to see this, cross over from the walk to Woodside Road and take the second road on the right, Ivanhoe Place and follow that to the junction with Hazelbank Gardens.

The second point of interest is that the walk has two features that centre Billy and his connection to Raploch. Along the walk are commemorative inserts with information about dates that are significant to those who lived in Raploch. There is one relating to Billy dated 1967, which was the year of what Billy was to call his greatest moment – as a member of the Scotland side that defeated England who were reigning world champions. It also contains a quote from Izzy.

The walk then takes you along the side of the river and past ever widening grass area and a play park. Although this again was not an area that Billy spent much time, it was where other young boys would spend hours playing football, there being not much else to do at that time. William recalls that where you played, depended on how many of you there were. If it was a handful you could play in the narrower sections and then as more boys joined in, you would move to the wider sections which ended in a pitch sized area.

At the end of the walk, you will come to another information plague which also has details about Billy. Further details about the information here can be found across the project website.

8. Potential brief diversion

At the end of the river walk, you can take a small diversion to experience a small taste of historical Stirling. To the left is the Stirling Old Bridge which was built in the 1400s or 1500s, replacing a succession of timber bridges. Undoubtedly the best-known of these was one that stood nearby in the 1290s, when Sir William Wallace and Sir Andrew Moray defeated Edward I’s forces at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. You can walk across and then return and on your left is a green area by the river which contains an information board about the Forth Trail.

9. Shell Park and Gowanhill United

After the brief diversion, come back to the trail by walking straight on from the end of the bridge and on to Laurencecroft Road. A short walk brings you to a junction with a Baynes the baker on your right. Go straight across, with care, onto Ramsey Place. The style of housing in Ramsey Place may again be closer to that around at the time of Bremner. Follow this road along back towards Raploch.

On your left is the area that, when Billy was growing up, was known as Shell Park with football pitches. This was also the site of Gowanhill United a team that Billy played for. There is more information about this on the website but this is a picture of Billy in the team. Notice the size of Billy compared to his teammates. He was about 14 playing with others who are 18 or 19.

Continue along Drip Road and you will be able to see the campus building further ahead on the left.
Carry on until you come to Ivanhoe Place on your right, turn into the road and you will shortly come to a parking area. At the time Billy was growing up this was all farm land and the farmer would let the team change in the house as there were no other facilities nearby. In the picture you can see the roof of a building just past the tree – that is where the farmhouse stood.

Come back on to Ivanhoe Place and walk back towards Drip Road and the site of Sainsburys. This is a similar route to the one taken by the Gowanhill team as they left the farmhouse, crossed the main road and then the railway line to get to Shell Park.

You can make your way to the Sainsbury’s site by crossing drip road and using a walk way up to the car park. There are no features of Shell Park remaining and so you will need to use your imagination to picture what it was like. Take care as this is a busy car park.

There are descriptions on the website but basically this was a public area with marked out football pitches. However, at least one of the pitches had a path through it and so games would need to be halted to allow people to pass through. Further down the site there is a MacDonalds which is the site of an old Nissan hut which was acquired some years after Billy played and was used for changing. Billy would sometimes play when he was back visiting the area and there is a view that he would have changed in the hut then but it is not possible to confirm this. As part of this project and to commemorate this important site in Billy’s life, Sainsbury’s have agreed to place a copy of the above picture of Gowanhill United.

10. The Future

At the moment the walk ends either here or back down at the campus building via the walk way.
However, as mentioned at the start of the trail there is a campaign to place a memorial of some kind to Billy by the campus and so hopefully soon you will be able to mark the end of the trail by taking a picture by the statue at a site where Billy honed some of his hallmark skills.

11. Extending your walk

As Stirling is an area steeped in history there are a number of sites of historical interest in the area and walks connected to them. The link here takes you to a heritage trail website which has a description of and leaflet for a walk around the hill that Gowanhill were named after. This is a steep walk so please read the description carefully. There is no direct link to Billy but it is highly likely that he and his friends would have explored this hill on their doorstep.

The description and leaflet are here – Gowanhill

The walk can be linked up with the castle and the Smith Museum which contains the world’s oldest football which was discovered in the walls of the castle.

We hope you enjoy your walk in the footsteps of Billy Bremner

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