Stirling

An hour train ride from Edinburgh lies the parish of Stirling and the Stirling Castle. Now being a castle, it was of course, up another hill.  

 

Knights, nobles and foreign ambassadors once flocked to the Royal Court of James V to revel in the castle's grandeur and its superb sculptures  and beautiful gardens.

Lady Ann's Garden  

The Ladies Lookout where the ladies went to enjoy the scenery (I suspect the road may have been a bit more rustic).  A court jester in chicken costume announced that he would fly from the ladies lookout, and off he jumped.  Alas, he landed in a pile of refuse at the bottom, but luckily suffered only a broken leg. 

The Stewart kings and queens hosted banquets to celebrate great events from christenings to coronations.  

The Great Hall

At the heart of the castle was the Royal Palace of James V.  

King's Outer Hall where all waited to be invited to the Inner Hall for an audience

King's Inner Hall

 

The ceiling in the King's Inner Hall has likenesses of the King, his two wives, one on either side and various important personages

The King's bed chamber

He was the father of Mary Queen of Scots.  He also had two infant sons who died very close together.  Was their death natural or perhaps from some more nefarious means...... It is unknown to this day.  At any rate the King was so distraught over the death of his sons that he perished soon after.  The Palace today has been restored to its renaissance splendour.

The Queen's Inner Hall 

The Queen's bed chamber

The castle compound also has a tapestry studio where we saw a lady working on a reproduction of original tapestries which will be hung in the palace and the great halls;  the great kitchens and the military museum of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. 

The museum is housed in what was the private residence of James IV and is called the Kings Old Building.  

 The museum in this building tells the history of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders from ancient times to present. Many artifacts from various campaigns and lots of silver. 

This is a silver depiction of the battle at Balaclava in the Crimea, where they became known as The Thin Red Line

The most poignant portion of this display for me was a display of sketches done by Corporal Sydney W. Oldham during WWI.  

He depicts how a soldier can go from normal everyday life to the horrors of war in just hours.  

It was a graphic display depicting the emotions all soldiers of war experience.   Sad that it is relevant even today.   

This one of the little girl is especially poignant.

Just down the hill from the castle is the Argyll's Lodgings where the Earl and his Countess lived when at court.  Pretty posh, but no comparison to the castle.  

The dining hall

The Earl's throne (Chamber Pot)

Then on to the Church of the Holy Rude, Stirlings medieval parish church.  After generations of Catholic Mass, this was one of the first churches in Scotland to experience the reformation. Here the Coronation of the infant James VI took place in 1567 (Son of Mary Queen of Scots); Westminster Abbey is now the only other active church in Britain where a Coronation has taken place.  A stop for coffee and then back to the station to await our train back to Edinburgh.

Waitin' on the train