Scotland Hotel Breaks

Tour Stirling Castle

With a magnificent site, high on a crag dominating the Forth carselands, Stirling Castle was one of Scotland's strongest and most impregnable fortresses. The castle is approached, up the tail formation of the crag, through the old town. Standing sentinel on the esplanade is Bruce's statue. Pass the Town Visitor Centre and after crossing the ditch and first gateway continue upwards passing through the Inner Gateway. On the left are the Queen Anne Garden, once a bowling green, the ramp up to the terrace, and the Casemates. where there is an entertaining exhibition entitled "Where To Go", with models and life-size figures. The 15th Century Entry and Portcullis House, the work of James IV, opens onto the Lower Square.

Lower Square
This is overlooked on the left by the ornate facade of the Palace, with the Great Hall straight ahead and the Grand Battery to the right.

Palace
Begun in 1496 by James IV, it was completed by 1540 in the reign of his son and is a masterpiece of Renaissance ornamentation. Stirling and the other royal residences of Falkland and Linlithgow remain isolated examples of the then current European Renaissance ideas and were to have little direct effect on Scottish architecture in general.

External elevations
The outstanding feature of the palace, which is simple in plan with four buildings round a courtyard, is the elaborate design of the external elevations. Take the covered passageway to the left, passing the entrance to the Lion's Den.

Lady's Hole
This terrace has good views to the west and in particular of the King's Knot below. Now all grass, the outlines of this garden can still be distinguished as laid out in 1627 by William Watt within the confines of the royal park. Away to the left the flagstaff of the rotunda at Bannockburn pinpoints another historic site.

Royal Apartments
The Palace Block has cellars below with the royal apartments on the main floor and accommodation for the courtiers above. The Queen's Outer and Own Halls are two nobly proportioned chambers where examples of the famous 16th Century Stirling Heads are now on display. This series of oak medallions is an extremely fine and rare example of Scottish Renaissance wood carving. The medallions were originally set into a compartmented ceil-ing in the King's Presence Chamber (Own Hall). Of the original 56, roughly a quarter are missing, three are in the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the rest are at Stirling awaiting reinstatement. Set in circular frames the medallions portray kings and queens, courtiers, and mythical and Biblical figures. Both the Queen's and King's Bedchambers are under restoration.

Great Hall
This free-standing building was sadly much altered when used as a barracks in the 18C. An important programme of restoration has recreated the former splendour of this apartment, a good example of late Gothic domestic architecture described by Defoe as "the noblest I ever saw in Europe". The original arrangement of the Gothic chamber included a dais at the south end flanked by magnificent oriel windows, with the screens and minstrel gallery at the opposite end. The hall with its oak hammerbeam roof was lit by paired windows.

Upper Square
This courtyard provides a good vantage point for comparing the facades of the Great Hall (1460-88). the Palace (1496-1540) and Chapel (1594) showing clearly how styles changed in under 150 years. The original front of the Great Hall had four pairs of deeply embrasured windows with, below, a lean-to roof protecting outside stairs leading up to the main chamber. Above the cornice was a crenellated parapet with wall-walk. The palace facade by contrast has a variety of unusual sculptured decoration: between the windows, recessed and cusped arches are the setting for carved figures (left to right: James V: young man holding cup: Stirling Venus: bearded man; woman in flowing drapery) which are on the baluster wall shafts. Above an intricately carved cornice is the base for more pedestals set against the crenellated parapet. The facade of the Chapel Royal is staidly sober by comparison.

Chapel Royal
The present church was hurriedly erected on the site of an earlier chapel by James VI for the baptism of Prince Henry. In the early classic Renaissance style, the courtyard front is most pleasing with three pairs of round-headed windows on either side of the elaborate doorway. The interior has elaborate wall decoration. The chapel now serves as memorial hall for the regiment.

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regimental Museum
Battle Honours, Colours, medals, peace and wartime uniforms, documents and pictures, all tell the story of nearly 200 years of regimental history and its heroic moments: The Thin Red Line at Balaclava 1854 and the Relief of Lucknow. The regiment is the proud possessor of an outstanding collection of silver. Pass through to the Douglas Garden. It was in the building (Douglas Room) on the left that Black Douglas was treacherously murdered in 1452 by James II. The wall-walk round the battlements on the east side has good views of the Forth carselands. From the viewpoint at the Grand Battery, pick out below the medieval Stirling Bridge bestriding the Forth with. in the middle distance, the tower of Cambuskenneth Abbey, the Wallace Monument and the Ochils on the horizon. Steps from the Lower Square lead down into the Great Kitchens, where, lit by fires and flickering torchlight, there is a vivid recreation of the chaos and confusion involved in the preparation of a right royal feast.

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