The Ros family owned the land east of the Allan Water from the 12th century and built a tower house in 1448 on a bluff overlooking the river. In financial difficulty they sold it in 1633 to James Pearson who was Dean of Dunblane Cathedral, and whose town house is now the museum. His great grandson Hugh laid out the Beech Walk in 1742 along the banks of the Allan Water, inspired by his “Grand Tour” in Italy. Some trees still survive today along the line of the walk from Beech Road and downstream of the “new” bridge. In 1770 the last Pearson laird built the current Kippenross House ¼ mile away from the old tower, on the other side of the old Darn Road, which was later diverted amid much controversy in 1858.

The lairds second son William Pearson apparently lost the freehold of Kippenross to John Stirling of Kippendavie “at dice or cards”, so recalled Aunt Anne, “on the night of the worst storm in years, which was nothing compared with the one he encountered when he got home, and told Jane wot ‘e dun.” In 1778 due to financial difficulties the Pearsons sold the estate to John Stirling. From his brother’s plantation in Jamaica, he brought back a slave who had saved his life in a slave’s revolt, and gave him a croft (Blackman’s Croft) near the Mill of Ads by the Darn Road footbridge over the Wharry Burn. This John Stirling also planted the fine beech hedge along Glen Road by Pisgah in 1785.

The later John Stirling of Kippendavie (1811 – 1882) inherited the estate at the age of five when his family owned significant property in town and to the east side of Dunblane, including farms on Sheriffmuir, Kippendavie and Kippenross. Like many of his generation he invested profits from colonial business to develop his estate, and supported improvements to Dunblane. He was a successful businessman and brought the railway (1848) through his land when other landowners rejected it, though on condition that it was hidden in a tunnel from his house. This was a busy decade when he built estate lodges, bridges and long driveways to enhance Kippenross estate. He built the north lodge at the golf course entrance, west lodge next to the Stirling Arms and south lodge where it remains today. He also built the Glen Road through to Bridge of Allan.

The “Big Tree of Kippenross” grew near Old Kippenross and Darn Road. It was supposed to be the biggest tree in Scotland, a sycamore dating from about 1400 to when it fell in a big snowy storm in 1868. In 1841 it measured 42ft 7in in girth, 114ft wide, 100ft high, even though it had previously been struck by lightning. Read more about the Tree Picture/article here.