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The Kelpies: free audio guide

The story of The Kelpies in Falkirk, as the Votura app tells it on location. Read it here, or hear it on the spot with turn-by-turn walking directions.

The Kelpies

Before you go

Address
The Helix, Etna Rd (Etna Rd), Falkirk, FK2 9HQ

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The story

The Kelpies are Falkirk’s most striking modern landmark, rising from The Helix as a pair of 30-metre-high horse heads that dominate the skyline and celebrate the working horses that once powered Scotland’s industry. Designed by the Scottish sculptor Andy Scott, they are officially named Duke and Baron, and they open to the public in 2014 as the centrepiece of a huge regeneration project in Falkirk. Each head is built from a steel frame and covered in more than 300 individual stainless-steel skin plates, giving the sculptures their reflective, muscular appearance in daylight and their dramatic shine after dark. The project is rooted in Scottish industrial history: the horses honour the heavy-duty Clydesdales that hauled barges and machinery, especially the horses associated with the Forth and Clyde Canal corridor and the region’s coal and iron work. The Helix itself is a major new park created to link Falkirk with the canal network, and the Kelpies sit beside the modern 35-kilometre-long Forth and Clyde Canal extension that forms part of the wider landscape. Their water-inspired name also nods to Scotland’s folklore, where kelpies are shape-shifting water spirits, but here the figures are transformed into monumental horse portraits rather than monsters. Construction is led through a major public-art commission, and the sheer scale makes the sculptures visible from far across the surrounding roads and towpaths. At 300 tonnes each, they are engineering feats as much as artworks, and their internal structure is designed to withstand the weather and the demands of their outdoor setting in central Scotland. The site becomes especially memorable because the two heads are not identical in pose, so from different angles you read different expressions and contours in the steel surfaces. Visitors can walk around the bases, stand beneath the towering necks, and appreciate how the sculpture turns a practical breed of horse into an emblem of civic identity. The Kelpies also connect directly to the nearby heritage of the area, where the canals, docks, and engineering works once made Falkirk a crucial transport and manufacturing hub. Their arrival in 2014 quickly turns The Helix into one of Scotland’s best-known visitor attractions, drawing people not just for the scale but for the way the artwork links folklore, labour history, and contemporary design. Because the structures are illuminated at night, the shapes change dramatically after sunset, and the polished steel catches every shift in weather and light. The sculptures are so large that they function almost like landmarks of navigation, anchoring the eastern edge of Falkirk’s green corridor. For tourists, they offer one of the clearest examples in Scotland of public art that is both beautiful and historically specific, rather than purely decorative. What makes them unforgettable is that they are not abstract symbols: they are giant portraits of working horses, made with exacting engineering and placed in a park that tells the story of Falkirk’s canals and industry. Standing beside them, you get a sense of how 21st-century sculpture can transform local memory into something monumental, precise, and impossible to ignore.

Written for the Votura audio tour and read aloud in the app. Opening hours change, so check with the venue before you go.

Self-guided tours that stop at The Kelpies

Hear it on the spot

Votura plays this guide when you reach The Kelpies, then walks you to the next stop. Works offline.

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