STIRLING CASTLE

The Forework Gate

Its location rivals even Edinburgh Castle for sheer magnificence as it sits on its high volcanic rock, visible for many miles in every direction.  The Castle is in the care of Historic Scotland and is open to the public all year round and seven days a week.

During a long and bloody history Stirling Castle has been attacked or besieged at least 16 times.  Three battles have been fought in its immediate vicinity, two of which were turning points in Scottish history: and a fourth equally important battle took place just a few miles to the north.  A number of Scottish Kings and Queens have been baptised, or crowned, or died within or near Stirling Castle. And at least one King was murdered nearby; while another committed murder within its walls.

Stirling Castle dated back to the 100 year period between 1496 and 1583, and to the efforts of three Kings, James IV, V and VI and one of their Queens, Mary of Guise.  But the Castle provided a home for Scottish Kings and Queens from the days of Alexander I (and probably earlier) until the Union of the Scottish and English Crowsn under James VI.

During 1200s and 1300s control was wrested from the English, then lost: before being regained at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.  It was at Stirling Castle, between the 1400s and 1600s that the Stuarts chose to make their home and were Mary Queen of Scots was crowned in 1543. In the 1700s Stirling once more became strategically important during the Jacobite rebellions.

Richard Fawcett (Febrary 1996). This book provides the reader with a tour of Stirling Castle and evokes the changing life of the castle and its human dramas.

From the North       From the South   The Grand Battery  The Great Hall

The Nether Bailey    The Palace        The King's Old Bldg