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Published: March 20th 2005
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Stirling jail
The outside of the jail Being my first visit to Stirling, I didn't know what to expect. I live about 45 minutes away from the place and have never really thought that it would be a very interesting place to see. Sure I knew about the castle and the Wallace monument, but to be honest, the thought of visiting never really occured to me before. As it was a sunday, and the first slightly mild one we have had for a while(after Scotlands recent arctic weather) and my oldest daughter getting over a tummy bug, the family decided it was time to blow of the cobwebs and get out again. How we decided on Stirling, i'm not quite sure, but I'm glad we did. The town centre is pretty easy to drive into and the first thing we couldn't help but notice was the abundance of beautiful old buildings that are everywhere in the town. Now given that it was sunday afternoon and time was getting on a bit after we had taken a little detour to visit the Bannockburn battle site on the journey here. we decided that we would just visit the castle. Now I usually find that trying to find things in towns
Mar's Wark
the facade of Mar's Wark can be a bit of a nightmare, but I have to say that it very well signposted and visitors should have no real problems in finding it. As we drove up the hill towards the castle, we saw the entrance to the old town jail, which I never knew even existed. Now after a bit of debating with the kids, and knowing that if we went into the jail, we wouldnt have time to visit the castle too, we came to the decision that the castle would have to wait to another day and visit the jail instead. We found a place to park outside the facade of an old 16th century mansion called "Mar's Wark". Now this place was built by the Earl of Mar who was the Keeper of Stirling Castle and one time Regent of Scotland during James VI early years and must have been a very grand building in its day, with plenty of stone carvings and gargoyles decorating its imposing walls. After a few photos and a nose around it was of to the jail, which far exceeded any of our expectations. Having paid our money, we were told by the girl in the shop
Holy Rude Church graveyard
the view front he rocky outcrop in the graveyard that a tour was about to start. So of we went up to the entrance and waited for it to begin. the history of the prison, which was opened in 1847 and everyday prison life is fantastically brought to life by the excellent tour guide who is dressed in period clothes and who acts out many examples of the poor prisoners and the scary sadisitic prison workers who would have made prison life in the 19th century a thoroughly horific place to be. after the guided tour, your left to your own devices to wander about and investigate the prison. We all went up to the top turret, which gives an amazing view of stirling and the surrounding countryside. This was where the prisoners were excercised for 15 minutes per day, and I can honestly say they wouldnt need any supervision as the only way of escaping is down and I mean a LONG way down. there was only one outcome for any daring prisoner who would be foolish enough to try and jump and that is to be found splattered on the ground below. After we left the prison we stopped of to visit the Church of the Holy
Holy Rude Church
the front of the church Rude and its churchyard. The first thing that fascinated me was the bullet marks on the church which were from the time the church was attacked by cromwell's troops. The church was also the site of the crowning of the young King James VI in 1567 after the abdication of his mother Mary Queen of Scots. John Knox also preached the sermon here. The church was closed for the season when we were there so we decided to have a quick look around the graveyard instead. Now this graveyard is packed with fascinating monuments and graves and you could easily spend a few hours going around them all, but with time getting on we could only have a quick look round and what we did see was thoroughly fascinating. The view you get from the top of a rocky outcrop in the graveyard is beautiful. Well for us the time was up and we left Stirling feeling that we had only scratched the surface of this town. Stirling had far exceeded any expectations we had before we came and we will definitely be coming back in the near future for more investigations around this historic and surprising place.
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