The Queen in Bridge-of-Allan

Well, it is not exactly the Queen in Bridge-of-Allan, more a cut-out of her.
But you get the idea.

Our local pharmacy in Bridge-of-Allan made the Stirling Observer with its window display supporting the Jubilee celebrations .


The pharmacy is something of a celebrity in the town for it is the oldest retail business here having been established in 1851 and the original wooden cabinets are still used today.
(I blipped them last year.)

But it is its founder Gilbert Farie, a native of Glasgow, who remains one of the most colorful characters ever to have lived here .

He is said to have been the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde in the creation of his character Jekyll and Hyde.

For Farie in true Victorian entrepreneurial style published his own guidebook to the area in order to attract more visitors and acted as a house-letting agent to them once they had arrived here.

Among the early visitors who patronised his pharmacy was the young Robert Louis Stevenson who recalled his conversations with Mr. Farie in later writings.

Medicine and health care in those distant days lacked the sophistication of today's drugs and therapies; it is no surprise to learn from advertisements that "finest Swedish Leeches" were received fresh every week.

The prescription books for the shop record the history of developing medical and pharmaceutical care from the reign of Victoria to the present day.