But the banks of Allan Water, behind the favourite Spa of Bridge of Allan and its embosoming woods and hills, are almost as well worth exploring; for they lead, to mention but a few of their attractions, to Dunblane and its beautiful old Cathedral, to Sheriffmuir, and to the Roman Camp at Ardoch.
The tide of Scottish history long flowed towards and around Stirling Castle. The time when it was not a place of strength and of strife is lost in the mists of antiquity. Early, too, it became the seat of kings; and the Castle, and the little burgh upon the slope behind, have witnessed many a stirring sight. Scottish Parliaments were held here, or in the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, whose ruined tower rises, on a “link of Forth,” opposite what is now the railway station. Sovereigns were born and baptised, were wedded and buried, held joyous jousts, and committed foul deeds of blood and shame, on Stirling Rock or under its shadow.
OLD BRIDGE OF FORTH, STIRLING.
The buildings on the highest platform of the Rock—still a fortified and garrisoned place—surround the “Upper Square.” What is the Armoury was the Chapel, erected on the site of an older Chapel Royal, by the “Scottish Solomon,” to celebrate, with pomp till then unheard of, the baptism of Prince Henry. Opposite is the Palace of James V., its front still embossed with the remains of rich carvings and uncouth sculpture. The Parliament House, built by James III. (now put to barrack purposes), and the building within which James II. stained his name and race with blood, by stabbing to the heart the Earl of Douglas, complete a group of buildings upon which have been indelibly impressed the character and the fate of the Sovereigns of the House of Stuart. The visitor to Stirling Castle can view Highlands and Lowlands from “Queen Mary’s Lookout;” and then, for change of sympathy and impression, inspect the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox; or, if his faith be great, the dungeon where Roderick Dhu drew his latest breath. The windy hollow between the Castle and the “Gowling Hills,” he is told, is Ballengeich, of which that hero of ballad adventure, James V., was “Gudeman.” The most distant of these braes was the “Mote” or “Heading Hill,” the old place of execution, where many a noble and guilty head has fallen—the Albany faction and the murderers of James I. among the number. Below the Castle, on the other side, are the King’s Garden and King’s Park, the scenes of the sports and diversions in the olden time, where James II. held tournaments, and James IV. delighted in his “Table Round.”
STIRLING, FROM ABBEY CRAIG.
Nor are the history and aspect of the town of Stirling unworthy of its noble station. It, also, is crammed with memories and antiquities—from the square tower of the West Church, grouping so well with the buildings on the Castle, and surmounting the hall where Knox preached and the infant James VI. was crowned, down to the burial-place of the murdered James III., under the tower of Cambuskenneth and close by the winding Forth.
But the historical fame and interest of Stirling rest perhaps more upon the bloody and decisive battles fought in its neighbourhood, than upon anything else. From the Castle ramparts one can look down upon Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn, and Sauchie; and Falkirk, Kilsyth, Sheriffmuir, and other stricken fields, reaching from the ’45 back to Pictish and Roman times, are not far off. In memory of the Struggle for Independence, but especially of William Wallace, the presentment of a feudal tower, surmounted by a mural crown, rises to a height of over 200 feet on the summit of the Abbey Craig, the most commanding site, next to Stirling Rock itself, in the valley. The Bridges—the old and the new—lie midway between these two bold bluffs. But the former venerable edifice, though it could also tell its strange stories of civil broil, and, among others, of how an Archbishop was hung on its parapet three centuries ago, is by no means the structure where the “Protector of Scotland,” watching the passage of the Forth (probably from the slopes of the Abbey Craig), taught so terrible a lesson to Cressingham and the English invaders. This, by all accounts, was a wooden structure placed half a mile above the moss-grown buttresses of the present Old Bridge of Stirling.
The fame of the battle fought at Stirling Bridge in 1297, and of the other fight, so disastrous to the Scottish cause, that took place a year later at Falkirk, has been quite obscured by the Bruce’s great victory at Bannockburn. One never thinks of Stirling without remembering that near by is the field where was decided, for three centuries, and indeed for all time, the history and fortunes of Scotland. The banks of the Bannock are now peaceful enough, and the people of the village of that name, and of the neighbouring hamlet of St. Ninians, lying still nearer Stirling and the battle-ground, are occupied with nothing more warlike than the weaving of tartans. The slough in which the English chivalry sank, and were overpowered, is now drained and cultivated land. But a fragment of the “Bore Stone,” where Bruce set up his standard, is still preserved; and the “Gillies’ Hill,” behind, commemorates the opportune appearance of the camp-followers of the Scottish army, when they hoisted their blankets on their tent-poles,
“And like a bannered host afar
Bore down on England’s wearied war,”
putting a finish to the rout of Edward II.’s troops.
Leaving Stirling and Bannockburn and all their memories behind us, we can now embark upon the Forth, and follow its broadening stream towards the open sea. The fat carse-lands are still on either hand, rimmed in on one side by the furrowed flanks of Dunmyatt and the Ochils, and bounded on the other by the Campsie Fells, crowned, far off, by Earl’s Seat; while beyond, on a clear day such as we have bespoken for our readers, the Bens grouped around the sources of the Forth and Teith lift themselves into view, fronted effectively by the towers of Stirling and the Abbey Craig. As we face now east, now west, now north, now south, on our devious way, these objects shift place bewilderingly, and more and more the “foot-hills” of the Ochils come down to take their place and give a bolder character to the foreground scenery of the Forth.
ALLOA PIER.
Very beautiful, at all seasons and in all lights, is this historic range, with its wonderful variety of form and play of shadows. As tales of wild Highland foray and stieve Lowland endurance are mingled in its annals, so the pastoral and mountainous combine in this its southern aspect; and the result is harmony. From the summit of Ben Clench, the highest of the Ochils, and from other coigns of ’vantage, you can gaze down into peaceful, secluded glens, familiar only to the sheep and the curlew, or into busy valleys lined by thriving villages and factory stalks, from which arises the smoke of the bleaching, spinning, and other manufacturing industries that have long had a home in the heart of these hills. Or you can look abroad and take in at one sweeping glance the whole breadth of the country from Glasgow to Dundee—from the Lammermoors and the North Sea to Ben Nevis and the hills of Arran.
But the greatest of the glens of the Ochils is that followed by the “clear-winding Devon,” over many a rocky scaur and past many a busy mill-wheel, on its way to join the Forth at Cambus. It would take a volume to do justice to the beauties, wild and soft, of the Devon Valley, and to the associations, warlike and peaceful, that have gathered around its noted places; to attempt to describe Crook o’ Devon and Rumbling Bridge, the “Devil’s Mill” and the “Cauldron Linn,” and Dollar and Alva Glens; to collect the memories that cluster about Tillycoultry and Alva, and Menstry and Tullibody; to dwell upon the attractions of its excellent trouting streams; or to peer among the shadows that appropriately shroud the ruins of Castle Campbell—the “Castle of Gloom”—overlooking the “Burn of Sorrow,” harried in revenge against Argyll for the burning of the “Bonnie House o’ Airlie.”
