Dollar Academy

Dollar Academy stands on a 28-hectare open campus in the centre of Dollar, at the foot of the Ochil Hills in Clackmannanshire. The school was founded in 1818 after John McNabb, a sea captain and merchant, left £65,000 to set up a charity school for the poor of Dollar parish. William Henry Playfair designed the original Greek-style building, whose outer walls survived a 1961 fire that gutted the interior. The rebuilt Playfair Building now has three floors of classrooms arranged along central corridors, and its library forms a whispering gallery under a domed ceiling. The school’s history includes a 2019 research project into McNabb’s links with the Atlantic slave trade, which is now taught across several subjects. Other buildings such as the Dewar science block, the Maguire art and PE centre, and the 2016 Westwater language and economics building have been added over time. In 2024 Dollar Academy received The Sunday Times Scottish Independent School of the Year award. The school’s coat of arms, granted in 1918, features Castle Campbell, an open book, a lamp of learning and the motto ‘Juventutis Veho Fortunas’. Visitors walk past the restored Playfair Building and its modern neighbours, then follow paths that lead towards Castle Campbell on the hillside above. The school library’s domed ceiling still carries sound across the room, and the corridors display awards from the pipe bands. Four pupil houses organise daily life, while senior pupils may wear piping or badges earned for sport or culture. The grounds sit close to the Ochil Hills, offering views across the valley as pupils move between classes.