IntroductionSterling, a fine town … built on a steep rock, and by a great river. ‘Tis a royal borough, was formerly the king’s palace, and seat of Parliaments, is well built, and continues still in much reputation and honour. Thomas Morer, 1689 In historic interest Stirling has few rivals in Scotland. From the earliest days of the Scottish Kingdom its great Rock was recognised as one of the places of cardinal strength in the country, surpassing that of Edinburgh itself in strategic importance. For fully five hundred years, from the reign of Alexander I to that of James VI, Stirling Castle was a principal and favourite residents of the Kings of Scots. Here they held their courts and parliaments, and here many of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the Royal House of Stewart were enacted. Under the shadow of the Castle there developed one of the earliest of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, a place of wealth and importance, with a stately Parish Kirk and Tolbooth, a spacious Market Place, and streets and wynds lines with the mansions of its merchants and the ludgings of the nobles of the court. Round the Castle and the Burgh of Stirling the pattern of Scottish history is woven more closely and continuously than anywhere else in the whole kingdom. At least half of the decisive battles of Scotland have been fought within sight of their walls, including both the great national victories of the War of Independence — that of Wallace at Stirling Bridge in 1297 and that of Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314. But Stirling, with its Rock and Bridge, was more than a key-point in military strategy. It was the chosen setting of much of the political life of Scotland — momentous decisions in Council or in Parliament, the organisation of rebellion and the reassertion of authority, terrible acts of public vengeance, the stir of party conflict in kirk and commonwealth alike. These historic evens would in themselves make Stirling a place of outstanding interest, but even more notable is the extent to which the setting of these events has survived to the present day, in the buildings of the Castle and Burgh. Elsewhere, history may become something unreal and incredible, but in Stirling it remains vivid and tangible, for here are the very Palace and Parliament Hall of the Stewart Kings, the great lodgings of their courtiers, the Parish Kirk reared by the burghers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Tolbooth, Hospital, and mansions erected by their successors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even in the twentieth century it is still possible to recapture a measure of the fascination which Snawdoun exercised over the old Scots poets — the upthrust ridge bearing high above the river and the plain the majestic profile of its towers and gables. Despite this, the survival of Old Stirling is imperfect and precarious — a mere shadow of what it might have been. Too much has gone, too much that remains has been mutilated, or allowed to fall into decay. It may be that, even now, the value of this remarkable architectural inheritance is insufficiently appreciated. If so, the publication of this booklet may be timely. Its purpose is simple and straightforward — to describe, quite briefly, the surviving features of “Old Stirling” as they may be seen at the present day. The buildings are given in two sequences — first the Public Buildings; second, Domestic Buildings. Each Public Building is distinguished by a letter, and each Domestic Building by a number¹ by which it may be identified on the sketch map at the end of this booklet. The map shows as much of the old street plan as still exists, modern streets being omitted. For completeness, the survey has been extended to the limits of the modern burgh, although both St. Ninians and Cambuskenneth, for example, were outside Old Stirling proper. Ronald G. Cant Ian G. Lindsay
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