Balloch () is an area of

Cumbernauld Cumbernauld (; gd, Comar nan Allt, meeting of the streams) is a large town in the historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth most-populous locality in Scotland and the most populated t ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, located north of the

M80 motorway The M80 is a motorway in Scotland's central belt, running between Glasgow and Stirling via Cumbernauld and Denny and linking the M8, M73 and M9 motorways. Following completion in 2011, the motorway is long. Despite being only a two lane mo ...

and west of Cumbernauld Town Centre. It is also known as Eastfield or Balloch Eastfield. Nearby neighbourhoods include Smithstone, Westfield and

Craigmarloch Craigmarloch is a private residential area of the town of Cumbernauld in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was the last such area that the Cumbernauld Development Corporation (CDC) laid out and began to construct. The area is designed to be like a ...

History

Balloch's name comes from a farm on the Cumbernauld Estate of the Fleming family. It is a derivative of

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

''bealach'', meaning a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits *Mountain pass, a lower place in a mountai ...

among hills or mountains. The area it now occupies used to be covered by Balloch Farm on the west side (located at the site of the Forge Community Centre at Ben Lawers Drive) and Eastfield Holdings on the east side (some of the buildings of which still exist). Balloch is a mainly residential area of privately owned homes, although a number of council-owned houses were built when the area was first established in the 1970s, which are also now largely privately owned – this neighbourhood is commonly referred to locally as Eastfield while the private housing, containing a large number of detached bungalows and villas, is known as Balloch, even though the former council estate is near the old farm and the private housing is closer to Eastfield Cemetery. Balloch was developed to accommodate growing numbers of people who wished to reside in a

commuter town A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

such as Cumbernauld with easy access to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

– in addition to the motorway,

Croy railway station , symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = 2019 at Croy station - platforms.JPG , borough = Croy, North Lanarkshire , country = Scotland , coordinates = , grid_name ...

is around to the north. The

National Cycle Route 75 National Cycle Route 75 runs from Edinburgh to Gourock via Glasgow. It is often known as the ''Clyde to Forth cycle route''. It then extends via the ferry from Gourock to Dunoon onto the Cowal peninsula to Portavadie from where another ferry co ...

, which runs between

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

and Glasgow, passes by Balloch.

Sport

Football

Balloch shares a youth football team with Eastfield called ''Balloch Eastfield'', which runs teams at most age groups. Balloch Eastfield F.C. also run various fundraisers through the year, which allows them to make charitable contributions on a regular basis. Balloch Eastfield FC was founded in 1986, and is in a strong position to continue for a good number of years. The local amateur team Eastfield AFC was founded in 2002; they reached the final of the

Scottish Amateur Cup The Scottish Amateur Cup is a nationwide knockout tournament supported and organised by the Scottish Amateur Football Association. The Scottish Amateur Cup is contested by hundreds of football clubs every year. The first and second rounds are reg ...

in 2019.Eastfield aiming for Hampden glory in Scottish Amateur Cup Final
Cumbernauld News, 22 May 2019 Players have included the former captain of

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

City Senne hits the heights of Cumbernauld
Deadline Press, via Fore! Four Two, March 2008 and the brothers Tyler and

Dale Fulton Dale Fulton (born 11 September 1992) is a Scottish professional footballer who previously played for Falkirk, Clyde and Stirling Albion Career Falkirk Fulton made his first team debut on 30 July 2011 as a substitute in Falkirk's 4 -2 win over ...

, whose father

Steve ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

is involved in coaching the squad. Cumbernauld from the air (geograph 4998799)

References

External links

Balloch Eastfield Community Council
Areas of Cumbernauld {{NorthLanarkshire-geo-stub