Alloa

Alloa is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, on the north bank of the Forth, south of the Ochil Hills, six miles east of Stirling and thirteen miles west of Dunfermline. It is the administrative centre of Clackmannanshire Council and was once a burgh of barony. The town grew up under the protection of Alloa Tower, a 15th century tower house of the Erskine family, the Earls of Mar, and its harbour carried coal and trade between Glasgow and continental Europe until the port stopped operating in 1970. Alloa became one of Scotland's premier brewing centres, with Younger setting up a brewery in the 1760s and the Forth Brewery surviving into the 2000s, and it also had glassmaking, wool, weaving and a distillery at Carsebridge. Its population was estimated at about 20,730 in 2016.