Alloa, centre of the world.

Having just finished reading a magazine article about railways in Alloa, I found myself there (by way of a detour from Balloch to Aberdeen via St Andrew's). I went down to the harbour to discover that it was an "ex-harbour". Although Alloa Harbour was the vital transport link for the industries of the area with 2,000 vessels using the docks by the mid-19th century, the harbour closed in the 1950s and there is no sign of it left. There are however a series of commemorative slabs telling the history of the docks. This one struck me as the most unusual, with a quote from Daniel Defoe - "At Alloa a Merchant may trade to all parts of the world". Well, the railway closed in the 1960s and re-opened a few years ago, so you never know!