The key to Scotland, on another volcanic rock, with a restored Renaissance palace and two battlefields in view.
Stirling sits where the Highlands meet the Lowlands at the lowest bridging point of the Forth, which is why almost every army in Scottish history came through it and why the saying went that whoever held Stirling held Scotland.
The castle stands on another volcanic crag, the twin of Edinburgh’s. Most of what stands is fifteenth and sixteenth century, from the reigns of James IV, V and VI.
The Royal Palace
The outstanding thing here. James V’s palace of the 1540s was restored between 2004 and 2011 in a project that reinstated the interiors as they would have looked when new — which meant bright colour, painted walls, replica tapestries and gilded ceilings, rather than the bare stone visitors expect from a castle.
The Stirling Heads — carved oak roundels of kings, queens and courtiers from the presence chamber ceiling — have been recreated in full colour, with the surviving originals displayed separately.
The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries, seven panels rewoven by hand over fourteen years from the originals in New York, hang in the Queen’s apartments.
The Great Hall of 1503 was restored in the 1990s and harled in bright ochre limewash, which caused a public row and is historically correct.
The setting
From the walls you look over the Carse of Stirling to the Ochils and the Highlands. Two battlefields are visible: Stirling Bridge, where Wallace and Moray destroyed an English army in 1297, and Bannockburn, where Bruce won in 1314.
The National Wallace Monument on Abbey Craig, a Victorian tower with Wallace’s alleged sword inside, is a short bus ride and a 246-step climb.
The Battle of Bannockburn Experience at the site south of the town is a 3D visitor centre rather than a preserved field — the exact location of the fighting is disputed — and is good with older children.
The town
Stirling Old Town runs downhill from the castle with the Church of the Holy Rude, where James VI was crowned in 1567, Mar’s Wark, and Argyll’s Lodging, a seventeenth-century townhouse.
Practicalities
Trains from Edinburgh Waverley take about fifty minutes and run frequently. The castle is a steep twenty-minute walk up from the station, or a short taxi.
Book the castle online. It is run by Historic Environment Scotland, so an Explorer Pass covering several sites can pay off if you are also doing Edinburgh Castle and one more.
