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Castles
in Stirlingshire.

It’s 20:57 in Stirlingshire.
Stirlingshire

Stirling's crag and the Castle of Gloom.

The castles here run from royal splendour to ruins in the trees. Stirling Castle stands on its crag above the town, where Mary, Queen of Scots was crowned, with the gold-walled Great Hall and the Royal Palace. Castle Campbell, once called the Castle of Gloom, sits on a ridge over Dollar Glen between the Burn of Care and the Burn of Sorrow, and the best way up is on foot through the glen. At Menstrie, a tower of the 1500s has been saved and turned into homes. By Killin, Black Duncan Campbell's castle is disappearing into the woods. Finlarig is a private, crumbling ruin, so enjoy it from the path.

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Did you know20 hours ago

Alan Waldron, who makes bagpipes by hand on Broad Street below Stirling Castle, took his first piping lessons in Gibraltar in 1991.

His interest grew during a spell working in Galway, in Ireland, and when he came back in 1996 he knew he wanted to make and play the pipes. He spent three years selling them, was taught to play by the world-renowned soloist Allan MacDonald, and by 2000 was making his own. At Garvie Bagpipes in Edinburgh he mastered smallpipes and Border pipes, then Highland pipes, learning every stage from reeds and bellows to lathe work and tuning. He had always dreamt of a business of his own, and it came true when he found premises in Stirling. Today Stirling Bagpipes makes new sets by hand, repairs tired ones and keeps antique pipes by famous makers.

See Stirling Bagpipes · Stirlingshire
Did you know19 hours ago

The grandest part of Stirling Castle was built to impress a French queen.

Scotland took up the ideas coming out of Renaissance Europe during the reign of James IV, who spent heavily here to make the place fit for a European monarch, partly to impress his own queen, Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England. His son, James V, carried it on for the same reason: the Royal Palace went up around 1540 to impress his second wife, Mary of Guise, who had come from the French court. Their daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, lived in that palace as a child and was crowned here in 1543.

See Stirling Castle · Stirlingshire
From Issue 8 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 818 hours ago

The 900th Anniversary of Stirling

The places that made Stirling’s story across 900 years as a royal burgh: the castle, the Church of the Holy Rude, Cambuskenneth Abbey, Mote Hill and the field of Bannockburn.

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Did you know17 hours ago

Prisoners escaped from Doune Castle, near Stirling, down a rope of knotted bed sheets, and one of them went on to sign the American Declaration of Independence.

After the Battle of Falkirk in 1746 the Jacobites held government prisoners in the rooms above the castle kitchen. Some of them knotted their bed sheets into a rope and climbed out. One was John Witherspoon, a Scottish minister who later moved to America and put his name to the Declaration of Independence.

See Doune Castle · Stirlingshire
From our guide17 hours ago

Alloa Tower.

Alloa Tower is the largest surviving keep in Scotland, a massive medieval tower in a park on the edge of Alloa. It was raised in the 1300s to guard a ferry over the Forth and became the home of the Erskines, Earls of Mar, loyal friends of the Stuart kings. Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI both spent part of their childhoods here. Inside hang portraits by Raeburn and Van Dyck, and the medieval Solar keeps its original oak roof timbers. Then climb the spiral stair to the roof walk for a view that reaches far across the Forth.

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Did you know16 hours ago

Robert the Bruce pulled down Stirling Castle's own defences, so that nobody could hold it against him again.

The castle guarded the lowest crossing point of the River Forth, which is why it changed hands over and over through the wars with England. Wallace won below it at Stirling Bridge in 1297 and Bruce beat Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314, but taking it and keeping it were not the same thing. So after Bannockburn Bruce had the defences destroyed rather than leave a stronghold for the next English army to walk into. It was not substantially rebuilt until 1336, and then by the English, who had taken it back. Scotland got it again in 1342.

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Did you know15 hours ago

The Stirling Heads, oak portraits carved for a royal ceiling at Stirling Castle, were scattered in 1777, and most are now back in the castle.

They were carved around 1540, in the reign of James V, each roughly 74 centimetres to a metre across, and show Scottish royals, figures from myth such as Hercules, and Roman emperors. In 1777 the ceiling was taken down, and the heads went to local magistrates and collectors, while some were lost for good. Counts vary, but around 38 are known to survive. Most are now shown in their own gallery on the upper floor of the Palace, and replica carvings, painted from traces of their original colour, were made when the Palace was restored in 2010.

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Did you know14 hours ago

Around AD 142 the Romans built a wall of turf right across central Scotland, the Antonine Wall, and gave it up within about twenty years.

The wall was ordered by the Emperor Antoninus Pius and ran between the Forth and the Clyde. Unlike Hadrian's Wall further south, it was built of turf and timber on a stone base, and it was protected by 16 forts. The soldiers marked the stretches they had finished with carved distance slabs, and twenty of those slabs survive. The wall was abandoned within two decades of being completed, but parts can still be seen, at places such as Rough Castle near Falkirk, and since 2008 it has been part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.

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From our guide14 hours ago

Sauchie Tower.

Sauchie Tower stands quietly among the trees at Old Sauchie, north of Alloa, a tall, plain tower house of pink sandstone that has changed very little since it was built. Sir James Schaw raised it after he gained the lands through marriage in 1431. The Schaws were a powerful family who served as governors of Stirling Castle, and in 1529 one of them was made hereditary Master of the King's Wine-Cellar. Mary, Queen of Scots came here in 1565. Fire gutted the tower in the 1750s, and today it is seen only from the outside.

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Did you know13 hours ago

Until the crowns of Scotland and England joined, almost every Scottish monarch had lived at Stirling Castle, been crowned there, or died there.

It is first mentioned around 1110, and it was the preferred residence of most of Scotland's later medieval kings, nearly all of whom added something to it: the King's Old Building for James IV in 1496, the Great Hall around 1503, the Royal Palace for James V around 1540. The greatest celebration of all came in 1566, when Mary, Queen of Scots had her son, the future James VI, baptised here. The fireworks that ended it are the first recorded anywhere in Scotland.

See Stirling Castle · Stirlingshire
Did you know12 hours ago

Scotland's first recorded fireworks were let off at Stirling Castle in 1566.

In 1566 Mary Queen of Scots' own son, the future James VI, was baptised at Stirling Castle. The fireworks display that ended the celebrations was the first recorded use of fireworks in Scotland.

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From the JournalThe journal11 hours ago

Stirling Castle and the Murder of the 8th Earl of Douglas

Stirling Castle is a magnificent example of the power and ambition of the Stewart dynasty.

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