The Importance of Holmehill
Holmehill Community Buyout is seeking to take Holmehill, a 13 acre greenspace in the centre of our town of Dunblane, into community control, in order to develop it sustainably for the benefit of our community. Situated to the east of the River Allan, and overlooking the cathedral, Holmehill is a prominent, attractive, and important landscape feature of this cathedral city. Although now well wooded with mature trees, the origin of the name Holmehill – How Maol ‘The Hollow of the Bare Hill’ - suggests a time in history when it may have looked very different.
The site currently supports mature policy woodlands, as well as open areas of grass and scrub. A well-used path runs through the site and links the community on the east of Dunblane with the town centre. The trees, and the hill on which they sit, are a prominent and important landscape feature of the town, providing an important sense of place.
Local and community plans
We seek to promote the existing plans and policies for Holmehill in our future proposals for the site. These include a Section 75 agreement, the Stirling Local Plan, the Dunblane Conservation Area, the Community Action Pan and the Council’s proposals for Core Paths. For more detail - click here
Historical Significance
Dunblane was founded in 602 AD by the Celtic missionary Blane. He lived with his followers in honeycomb shaped stone cells inside the old Dun fort behind the town. This area is now known as Holmehill. St. Blane founded a church here and became one of the most important churchmen of his time, known as 'Blaan the Triumphant'. After St. Blane's death, Dunblane became a stronghold of the Culdee church that was most likely responsible for building the four lower storeys of Dunblane Cathedral tower. From then on Dunblane became an important centre of church and state. Holmehill played a central physical role in not only the formation of Dunblane as an ecclesiastical centre but of the current town itself.
Holmehill House was built on the site around 1820 and was demolished in 1980.
Archaeology
In August 2007 local historian and archaeologist Bill Inglis wrote an article for the Dunlane Community News on the archaelogical significance of Holmehill. To read article click - Here
Ecology
Green spaces such as Holmehill are highlighted as has having an important role in sustaining and increasing biodiversity: see Scotland’s Biodiversity: it’s in Your Hands (Scottish Executive 2005). Many of the mature trees now present on the site are likely to have been planted as landscaping in the grounds of the mansion house built on Holmehill around 1820. Indeed formal landscaped grounds on the site appear to be present on the 1817 OS map of Dunblane. Tree species such as lime, beech and sweet chestnut are found flanking the main pathways through Holmehill, with further mature trees, mainly beech, but including native species such as oak, holly, yew, birch, elder, and ash scattered across the site.
The Perth Road meadow has a good covering of "pig nut" an indicator of ancient and undisturbed pasture. There is a profusion of insect life to sustain the wider animal population. With its canopy of mature trees, dense shrubbery in places and areas of grassland, Holmehill is inhabited by bats and supports a good variety of woodland and woodland margin birds, including species such as chiff chaff, willow warbler, wren, bluetit, owl, great spotted woodpecker and sparrowhawk. A conspicuous breeding species is the rook, and a fairly large, well-established rookery is located on the north-west corner of the site, adjacent to Ramoyle and the Braeport.
Use by the community
In the last few years, the land’s owners have had a poor record in relation to the management of Holmehill. This has included regularly dumping large volumes of refuse on the site, failing to maintain ancient walls in good order and destroying field drains through vehicle use. Despite the current lack of maintenance, the land is well used by the community for walking, as an inspiration for local artists, and for outdoor interests such as ornithology, composting and dowsing. In addition, the hill has been the venue for a variety of community events, including visits by children from the adjacent St Mary’s Primary School, local nurseries, playgroups, and Brownies, guided walks by a local naturalist, a resource for St Blane study days and poetry weekends run in the adjacent Scottish Churches House, art and photography workshops, and children’s Halloween activities run by local storytellers and artists. The congregation of Dunblane Cathedral also uses the hill in part of its Easter celebrations.
