Kirkliston

Kirkliston Parish Church

A church stood on a knoll overlooking the River Almond here in the 1100s, part of an estate held by the Knights Templar. At the time the settlement around it was known as Temple Liston. Much of the Templar church survives as Kirkliston Parish Church, just as much of the original name of the settlement survives in the later Kirkliston.

The Newliston Arms Main Street Kirkliston Library

It's not obvious to a modern traveller, but Kirkliston grew up around what for a thousand years was one of the most important roads in Scotland. The main route from Edinburgh to Linlithgow, Falkirk and Stirling was often travelled by Scottish Royalty: and by a succession of invading English armies.

The Pharmacy

Scotmalt Maltings

Kirkliston remained on the main A9 until the early 1970s. Then the M9 motorway was opened to service the through traffic along the south side of the River Forth. And at about the same time a new runway was built at Edinburgh Airport which severed the old route of the A9 south east of Kirkliston. Separated from the suburbs by Green Belt but still very convenient for Edinburgh, Kirkliston started a new life as a popular dormitory village for the capital.

Kirkliston's real period of growth began in the 1600s when linen weaving got under way. From the end of the 1700s alcohol started to feature large in the village's economic life. In 1795 the Lambsmiln Distillery started operations here before later changing its name to the more memorable Kirkliston Distillery.

By the 1880s and after a series of different owners, Kirkliston Distillery was producing some 700,000 gallons of grain and malt whisky each year. The distillery ceased whisky production in the 1900s, but was later taken over by Scotmalt to produce malt extract for the food industry and for home brew beer kits. It has since been demolished to make way for housing.

In 1969 a new manufacturing plant for Drambuie opened just to the west of Kirkliston. This is a whisky liqueur including honey and other ingredients whose secret recipe was given by Bonnie Prince Charlie to a member of the MacKinnon family who had helped him after the Battle of Culloden.

Named Drambuie, "the drink that satisfies", in the Broadford Inn on Skye in 1893 after its public launch, it was later produced and marketed by the MacKinnon family in Edinburgh. The plant at Kirkliston remains the world's most advanced liqueur manufacturing plant, and maintains the village's links with an industry that has helped sustain it for over two hundred years.