Stirling

Scotland in miniature, a compact royal burgh climbing to a great castle on a volcanic crag that guards the lowest crossing of the River Forth, the old gateway between Lowlands and Highlands. It was said that he who holds Stirling holds Scotland, which is why the ground around it was twice decisive: William Wallace's victory at Stirling Bridge in twelve ninety-seven and Robert the Bruce's at Bannockburn in thirteen fourteen. The Old Town descends the rock past the finest Renaissance townhouse in the country and the kirk where an infant king was crowned, while the surrounding fields carry the memory of the Wars of Independence. Read the royal burgh and its battlefields at your own pace.