Bannock Burn (Gael. ban-chnoc-burn, ` stream of the white knoll '), a rivulet of St Ninians parish, Stirlingshire. It rises, at an altitude of 1250 feet, between Touchadam Hill (1343 feet) and Earl's Hill (1443), and winds about 14 miles east-north-eastward, past Bannockburn town, to the Forth at a point 2¼ miles E of Stirling. 'In places,' Hill Burton writes, ` its banks are steep. It now has generally little volume of water, being diverted for manufacturing purposes; but among the dirty pools in its bed in the filthy manufacturing village, the multitude of large boulders brought down by it show that it has been at times a powerful stream. '

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)