Day 12 - A Stirling Day

Day 12, July 15, 2013:

Off bright and early (well early, it was a bit overcast) to Stirling and one of the best restored castles I have ever been to.  We always think of castles as damp, drafty organized piles of grey stone with meter thick walls and poor sanitation.  Well Stirling castle does have meter thick walls and a bloody great moat which is dry because it is built on top of a hill attached right into the volcanic bedrock and it probably had poor sanitation but is was colorful!  Much of the original castle, or at least the higher bits have been knocked down by cannon fire or torn down to rebuild over the years, and what is left is a grey sandstone, but in its heyday back in the 1500’s it was covered with an ochre colored lime wash which made the entire place look gold.  Being on a hill in the middle of the valley, people from all around must have been mesmerized by the gleaming gold castle on the horizon and the show of strength and power it represented.

‘Hold Stirling and you hold Scotland’ was the saying and for hundreds of years people tried to do just that.  It sits atop a wooded crag that is the plug of an extinct volcano (dramatic black rock) right in the middle of the valley of the River Forth with a 360 degree view and a high vantage over the river and of course the bridge.  Stirling is the gateway to the Highlands to the north and the lowlands to the south and has always been a strategic position both military and economic.  It has had many owners but much of what is there currently was built by James V (his son James VI later became James I of England and Scotland, thus uniting the English and Scottish throne). The old town is beautiful being made up of twisty cobble streets and medieval buildings but always the castle towers above.  The Scots have undertaken a massive 35 yearlong restoration of the castle itself including restoring the Great Hall, chapel and royal palaces to their former splendor.  The vaulted chapel roof was re-built with oak beams from close to 400 oak trees and it held together completely with four thousand hand hewn oak pegs.  The royal palace has been hung with wall hangings and re-painted in the original colours and rather than a dank dingy castle is bright and almost garish.  There is also a group of artisans on site that is recreating a series of tapestries based on the theme of the hunt for the Unicorn.  Weaving a tapestry is a painstaking and lengthy process, each panel takes two years to make and they have completed six out of the seven planned for the castle restoration- we had to drag Mary Rose out of there she was so fascinated.

Now for those of you who have seen Braveheart (you know, Mel Gibson painted blue in a kilt….), this is the place and I had best say something about William Wallace or they may never let me back into Scotland.  First off, it is putting it mildly to say that there are a few historical inaccuracies in Braveheart and the battle at Stirling Bridge not the least of which was that William Wallace did not wear a kilt to battle nor paint himself blue.  William Wallace was one of Scotland’s greatest heroes, a commoner from a great clan (so he received some education) and by all accounts a huge man, well over six feet tall based on the huge sword he wielded.  Although he had no title or commission he was a patriot and a born leader and rallied the Scots to defeat a vastly larger and better equipped British army at the battle for Stirling Bridge in 1297.  He was later knighted by Robert the Bruce and proclaimed Guardian of Scotland.  But a few years later a combination English military superiority and disloyal (or fickle) Scottish nobility betrayed William Wallace.  In 1305 he was betrayed by nobility that were prepared to side with King Edward and he was captured tried for treason as Westminster and hanged, beheaded and drawn and quartered.  His statues now adorn Scotland and are found around the world, even as far as Australia.

After an exhaustive tour of the castle and a pub lunch, it was across the valley to visit the Wallace monument, a great Victorian Gothic tower sitting again atop a rocky, impregnable crag.  It is a fifteen minute climb to the crag where the monument stands and two hundred steps up a steep and narrow (one way) spiral stone staircase to the ‘crown’ at the top.  The monument was built in the mid eighteen hundreds to commemorate the bid for Scottish independence using seven thousand pounds of seed money.  The project was fraught with difficulties and at one point it was suggested to be torn down and the stone sold off to recover costs, however it was completed and stands there still.  It is divided into three floors dedicated to the life of William Wallace and other heroes, inventors and statesmen of Scotland.  The high point however is to make it to the Crown at the top where the wind whistles and you have a magnificent view of the surroundings.  The tower also houses William Wallace’s 66 inch two handed broad sword giving you an idea what a large and powerful man he must have been - the sword is as tall as I am!