Land use across the Northern Ochils has seen a dramatic change over the last two hundred years. Until comparatively recently this had been a widely settled landscape on which people farmed animals and crops. Cultivation of the soil is recorded in cropmarks across these uplands, while the large barn at West Dron, the horse mill at Glenearnhill and the drystone walls running across the landscape represent the importance of animals to the farmers who once lived on, and worked the land. General Roy’s 1750 survey suggests that extensive farming on the Ochils had not started by the second half of the 18th century. The map shows that settlement in the valley was dominated by village settlements and outlying farmsteads, and also shows the extent of cultivated and enclosed land. No upland settlements are visible on this map.

• Stone Clearance

Stone clearance has been extremely important in altering the landscape around Castle Law, as it would have been strewn with glacial till following the retreat of the Devensian ice caps. Few examples of prehistoric clearance cairns are immediately obvious; however a large amount of rock, deposited by glacial action and possibly cleared some time in prehistory, has been incorporated into dry stone walls.

• Quarries

There are numerous examples of stone quarrying around the area, ranging from the large quarries at next to the Wallace road, to the piecemeal quarrying around Glenearn Hill. Local stone has a variety of uses in the local area (i.e. drystone walling and structural material).

• Farms – Old Culteuchar/New Culteuchar/ Glenearnhill/ West Dron/ Mundie
  

Old Culteuchar remains as an upstanding ruin, possibly the croft, which lies adjacent to an enclosed area marked out by the bank of the road and a bank of large stone and earth. Dug into the side of the road is an alcove, which is described on the HER as a corn drying kiln.

New Culteuchar is an occupied hill farm, possibly built as a replacement for old Culteuchar, and appears to have been occupied before 1846.

Glenearnhill retains most of its walls at their original height, including the three supports for the roof of a horse mill attached to the eastern end of the structure. This farm lies within a substantial boundary running south for 500m, then south east for another 250m. This boundary consists of a double line of dry stone walls which support a central bank and an avenue of trees. This structure, coincidentally a parish boundary, may have acted as a wind break, especially if crops were being planted in the enclosed area.

West Dron consists of a small rectangular plan farmstead, divided in two halves with a cast iron fireplace still visible on the interior wall. A substantial barn associated with the farmstead lies around 20m to the east, and consists of low lying walls, except around the front entrance where the walls still stand to their original height, around 4m. Between the barn and the farmstead, the cattle drove road crosses the farm yard running south towards Kinross, and north towards Bridge of Earn and Perth. When the site was visited in April 2008, midden material was visible on the surface adjacent to the site, having been exposed by moles.

The settlement at Mundie consists of a series of buildings, currently surrounded by a pine plantation, lying on the southern slope of West Dron Hill. A range of buildings is visible as low walls, taking up a substantial area subdivided into rooms of roughly equal size. The length of this range is approximately 70-75m, with two wings at either end. Further enclosures are visible around the main range, the largest of which is made from substantial boulders supporting an earth bank. A substantial midden is visible beside the track leading away from the site: the occupants of the site had made use of a small quarry.

• The Wallace Road

The Wallace road, mentioned in Sir Walter Scot’s novel The Fair Maid of Perth, remains as an incision into the hillside, winding up the hillside, across the site at West Dron, and carrying on south. The road is marked on General Roy’s survey, crossing the Ochills E of West Dron Farm.

• Forestry

A small series of earthworks is visible inside the West Dron forest plantation, one of which had been associated with machinery, present in the form of a machined flywheel. Possibly a piece of machinery from a steam or diesel driven sawmill?