Exploring Stirling Castle (Friday, Sept 4)

Stirling Castle from viewpoint in King's Park.

Stirling Castle sits on top of Castle Hill, overlooking the town of Stirling. We walked from Victoria Square Guest House to the castle this morning, using one of the side entrances to the shopping area that has built up below the castle over the last 500 years. 

By the time we reached the parking area for the castle, the tour buses were beginning to accumulate, but overall the crowds were quite tolerable. The castle grounds cover the entire hilltop, three sides of which are steep cliffs, placing this castle in a strong defensive position. We learned that it has never been overtaken by warring factions, but it has changed hands due to siege eight times in its history.

Sir Patrick Wemyss explains the
queen's bedroom (not for sleeping!)

Historic Scotland has done a great job keeping this castle in prime shape for visitors. We got the audio self-guided tour, which provided lots of interesting information about many parts of the castle grounds. I would be writing all night if I tried to describe all we saw! One of the most exciting parts for me was learning about a recent project to reproduce tapestries for the Queens Inner Hall of the palace. You can read about this project on the Castle blog (note: you may have to search for unicorn tapestries) and on this website. Here's what the last link says about the tapestries:

Work began on the new tapestries in 2001 and was completed in 2014. Four of the seven were woven in a purpose built studio within Stirling Castle. In Spring 2015, visitors will be able to see an exhibition about the tapestry project in the studio - 'Weaving the Unicorn.'

One of the completed new tapestries
at Stirling Castle.

Closeup of another tapestry showing the beautiful detail.

Reenactor who told us
about the tapestries.

Guess what! We not only saw those absolutely amazing tapestries, we also got to visit the exhibition explaining how they were made! It was fascinating, so much so that I'm now eager to learn to weave!

The new tapestries are closely based on a set of seven held by the Metropolitan Museum of New York at its Cloisters Museum. The original tapestries were produced in the early 1500s in the Low Countries. The exhibition showed how the artwork of the original tapestries was duplicated and then used as a guide for the new ones. Each tapestry had a chosen weaver, who had to figure out how to work with the hand-dyed yarns to achieve the desired end result. What a project!!

As we were walking from one section of the Castle grounds to another, we climbed to the rim walk to see the view. In every direction, the view was remarkable. Some spots overlooked the city; others overlooked the King's Park, which is now a golf course.

By early afternoon, we were feeling in need of some lunch, so we stopped at The Portcullis Pub for lunch. The Portcullis is also a hotel and is very close to the Castle. We had a delightful lunch -- pub grub taken to a higher, home-made level! 

Church of the Holy Rood

After lunch and a visit to the Church of the Holy Rood, the medieval parish church of Stirling, and Argyll's Lodging, the most complete surviving example of a seventeenth century town house in Scotland, we felt jet lag catching up with us again, so we headed back to Victoria Square for a rest time!

Tomorrow we head to Pitlochry.

Late breaking news: Smoky just heard more DNA results, and he is definitely descended from people who lived on the Isle of Bute! Now we are going to try to revise our itinerary so that we can spend some time there before the end of our trip! This is exciting!

--Shann

Here are a few more of Smoky's photos from this day:

Doll that Mary Queen of Scots played with as a child.
(Kaye, this one is for you!)

Reenactor telling us about her job
(maid) and this room.

Unicorn painting in one of
the King's rooms.

Inside Church of the Holy Rood

Dining room at Argyll House, Stirling