IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Luss Road, ALEXANDRIA, G83 0HB

Green and entrance sign. Lomond Drive on left. Taken from B857 Luss Road

The picture was taken from the junction with Image

Signs welcoming one to Alexandria, wishing one back to Loch Lomond National Park, and directing one to the Loch Lomond Factory Outlets.

This road is the western entrance into the Levenvale area. Levenvale and Tullichewan (an area of housing on the other side of Luss Road) together make up much of this grid square, so I have included several representative views (compare Image). Apart from a few exceptions like Lomond Road and Lomond Drive (shown here), Argyll/Argyle Avenue (named after Image), and Burns Street, all of which are on the edges of Levenvale, many of the streets in this area are named after political figures: see Image for several examples.

The picture was taken from a point about 150 metres further north along the road than the viewpoint for Image

This is the main road leading into Tullichewan, an area of housing on the western side of Luss Road. Tullichewan Road more or less bisects the estate. The name has been associated with this area for a long time, and there used to be a Tullichewan Castle nearby: see, for example, Image In connection with that name, some nineteenth-century authors(*) used the form Tilly-Colquhoun. However, to my mind, that has the appearance of folk etymology; in any case, it is not borne out by early forms of the name. It is quite likely that it contains the Gaelic element "tulach" (knoll, hillock), but the overall meaning is uncertain. (Compare the name Tullochan, at Image, about 5.5 km NNE of here.) By way of illustration, the following are authentic older spellings (although not necessarily the very oldest). The Lennox Cartulary has a charter by Earl Malcolm (before 1333), in which the spelling is "Tulochewyne", quite close to the present form. The following later examples are from the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (RMS), with the year of the relevant Latin charter given in parentheses: "et tribus Tullequhwnys" (1507); "terras de tribus Tulliquhewnys" (1512); "Tullichquhoneis" (1545); "Tullichewynnis" (also 1545). The various RMS spellings appear to be plural in form, "Tullichewans". In fact, the Latin entries from 1507 and 1512, quoted above, both refer to "the lands of the three Tullichewans". [(*) For example, Joseph Irving, in his "History of Dumbartonshire" (1860), writes that "in the north-west part of Bonhill parish are the lands of Tillichewan, or Tilly-Colquhoun".]

The mushrooms are in a mycorrhizal association with (that is, they are associated with the roots of) birch trees that stand here beside a path near Lomond Road in Balloch.

From A811 east