Why Stirling is amazing

Anvil of Scottish history

For those that don’t know me I have the very great privilege to be Stirling Council’s archaeologist: ie you all pay my wages…thank you!

I was greatly honoured when the Observer asked me to take over, though not replace Elspeth King’s regular column on Stirling, following her retirement from the Smith. I for one will certainly miss her.

I thought I would start by reminding you all of why Stirling is amazing. We sit at the lowest crossing point of the River Forth, every army that invades or resists invasion has to cross at Stirling and because of this, our wonderful city has been the anvil of Scottish history for the last 2000 years as blood and treasure were lost and heroes and villains created to control this key location.

Stirling is home to the world’s oldest football and curling stone. It was Scotland’s ancient capital; it is Scotland’s best preserved medieval city and has one of the best preserved renaissance palaces in Europe, the oldest and best preserved royal park in Scotland, the best city walls in Scotland, the two most important battles in Scottish history, the best preserved late medieval hospital in Scotland, and the only place outside Westminster Abbey still standing to have held a coronation.

We have fought Romans, Angles, Picts, Vikings, The English, other Scots, Cromwell, Jacobites and the Hanoverians and played a key role in the preparations for D-Day, the single most important event in world history: the start of the defeat of the Nazis.

Nowhere else in Europe can you walk in 30 minutes from a medieval castle to a Celtic fort to a medieval battlefield and back to spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie stood. We are brilliant and unique…let’s never forget it!

Stirling Council archaeologist Dr Murray Cook, right, is to contribute a regular column to the Observer. Murray’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Stirling’s history and boundless enthusiasm for his subject is well known. He is from Leith and graduated from Edinburgh University in 1995. Murray worked across Scotland and Northern England before finally being appointed Stirling Council’s archaeologist in 2008. He lives in Stirling area with three daughters, two cats and, he says, a longsuffering wife. He thinks Stirling is amazing and that its past belongs to us all.In his first offering , Murray tells how Stirling lays claim to being the ‘anvil of Scottish history’.

Cradle of history Dr Murray Cook’s daughters Kirsty, Eilidh and Heather at part of the Atlantic Wall replica built at Sheriffmuir during preparations for the invasion of Europe in World War Two