Dollar

Dollar, a pleasant town of Clackmannanshire, at the foot of the Ochils, and near the Devon's right bank, 6 miles NE. of Alloa, and 12 ENE. of Stirling. It has bleachfields, but owes its chief well-being to its academy, a domed Grecian edifice (1818-67), which, founded under the will of Captain John M'Nab (1732-1802), a Dollar herdboy and London shipowner, gives higher and secondary education to 800 pupils of both sexes. A mile north of Dollar are the noble ruins of Castle Campbell or Castle Gloom, crowning an almost insulated knoll, amid mountain-rivulets and bosky woods, with King's Seat (2111 feet) rising behind. It belonged to the family of Argyll from 1465 till 1805, in 1556 sheltered John Knox, and in 1645 was burned by Montrose. At Dollar in 877 the Danes won a victory; and in 1538, its 'good vicar,' Thomas Forrest, was burned at Edinburgh for heresy. Pop. (1851) 1079; (1881) 2014; (1891) 1807. See Beveridge's Between the Ochils and the Forth (1888).