Murray Cook nails a piece of Stirling history
I was recently lucky enough to get a behind- the-scenes tour of Cowane’s Hospital during the current renovation works there.
Now you all know about Cowane’s Hospital. It’s not an A&E but rather a 17th century alms house built for looking after members of the Merchant’s Guild when they fell on hard times and it’s the best preserved example of its type in Scotland.
The roof is being replaced which means the original slates are being taken off and put back up with better nails.
This is because iron nails rust, a process called nail rot, so of course the ground was littered with them.
Now the nails in Cowane’s Hospital are potentially 17th century so I picked a few up.
Unlike modern nails which are round, these nails were individually made by blacksmiths and have square profiles.
Given the cost of transport in the past these nails were likely made close by, in Stirling.
John Harrison has noted that over 28,000 nails were used to build the hospital’s roof, all from unnamed suppliers.
We know that in the 1680s a Stirling smith named John McArthur supplied several hundred nails to the hospital.
There was also a specialist nail maker in Dunblane, John Thompson, who supplied 400 nails for the door.
St Ninian’s and Bannockburn were once home to a thriving nail industry and it’s probable that the nails pictured here were made there.
The earliest record of a nail maker in the area is William Lockhart who was making nails for Stirling Castle in 1633.
So perhaps the nails above were made by William or John. Certainly they are all that remains of a once thriving industry and they are now in the safe keeping of the Trust.