The visitor centre for the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, the David Marshall Lodge is an impressive building constructed on a plateau overlooking the Upper Forth Valley, a quarter-mile (0.5 km) northwest of Aberfoyle. Designed to be in harmony with its location and built by the Carnegie UK Trust, at a total cost of £50,000, the Lodge opened in 1960. It was immediately gifted to the Forestry Commission as a recreational and educational resource. The building is named after the Dunfermline solicitor who was Chairman of the Carnegie Trust at the time, who had pioneering ideas for increasing public enjoyment of natural places, of which this Lodge was a realisation. This particular idea was well ahead of its time, providing visitors with a place to enjoy their picnic lunch, safe from the vagaries of the Scottish weather.
Now managed by Forestry and Land Scotland, the Lodge also offers spectacular views towards the west, across the Loch Ard Forest towards Ben Lomond.
