Discover Stirling & Northeast Scotland - Discover Scotland: Experience the Best of Scotland - page 356

Below the castle, the steep Old Town has a remarkably different feel to modern Stirling,
its cobblestone streets packed with 15th- to 17th-century architectural gems. Its growth
began when Stirling became a royal burgh (about 1124), and in the 15th and 16th centur-
ies rich merchants built their houses here.
Stirling has the best surviving town wall in Scotland. It was built around 1547 when
Henry VIII of England began the ' Rough Wooing' - attacking the town in order to force
Mary, Queen of Scots to marry his son so the two kingdoms could be united. The wall can
be explored on the Back Walk , which follows the line of the wall from Dumbarton Rd to
the castle. You pass the town cemeteries (check out the Star Pyramid , an outsized af-
firmation of Reformation values dating from 1863), then the path continues around the
back of the castle to Gowan Hill, where you can see the Beheading Stone , now encased
in iron bars to prevent contemporary use.
Mar's Wark , on Castle Wynd at the head of the Old Town, is the ornate facade of a
Renaissance town house commissioned in 1569 by the wealthy Earl of Mar, regent of
Scotland during James VI's minority.
The Church of the Holy Rude ( www.holyrude.org ; St John St; admission free; 11am-4pm
May-Sep) has been the town's parish church for 600 years and James VI was crowned here
in 1567. The nave and tower date from 1456, and the church has one of the few surviving
medieval open-timber roofs. Stunning stained-glass windows and huge stone pillars create
a powerful effect.

BANNOCKBURN
Though Wallace's heroics were significant, it was Robert the Bruce's defeat of the English
on 24 June 1314 at Bannockburn, just outside Stirling, that eventually established lasting
Scottish nationhood. Exploiting the marshy ground, Bruce won a great tactical victory
against a much larger and better-equipped force, and sent Edward II 'homeward, tae think
again', as the song 'Flower of Scotland' commemorates.
The Bannockburn Heritage Centre (NTS; www.nts.org.uk ) is due to reopen after a big re-
furbishment in spring 2014, in time for the 700th anniversary of the battle.
The battlefield itself (which never closes) will hopefully receive a bit of work too; at
present, apart from a statue of the victor astride his horse and a misbegotten flag memori-
al, there's nothing to see. Bannockburn is 2 miles south of Stirling; you can reach it on bus
51 from Murray Pl in the centre.

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